Hybrid use of Raman spectroscopy and artificial neural networks to discriminate Mycobacterium bovis BCG and other Mycobacteriales

Michael Macgregor-Fairlie*, Paulo De Gomes, Daniel Weston, Jonathan James Stanley Rickard, Pola Goldberg Oppenheimer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

Even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a major public health problem and the 2nd biggest infectious cause of death worldwide. There is, therefore, an urgent need to develop effective TB diagnostic methods, which are cheap, portable, sensitive and specific. Raman spectroscopy is a potential spectroscopic technique for this purpose, however, so far, research efforts have focused primarily on the characterisation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and other Mycobacteria, neglecting bacteria within the microbiome and thus, failing to consider the bigger picture. It is paramount to characterise relevant Mycobacteriales and develop suitable analytical tools to discriminate them from each other. Herein, through the combined use of Raman spectroscopy and the self-optimising Kohonen index network and further multivariate tools, we have successfully undertaken the spectral analysis of Mycobacterium bovis BCG, Corynebacterium glutamicum and Rhodoccocus erythropolis. This has led to development of a useful tool set, which can readily discern spectral differences between these three closely related bacteria as well as generate a unique spectral barcode for each species. Further optimisation and refinement of the developed method will enable its application to other bacteria inhabiting the microbiome and ultimately lead to advanced diagnostic technologies, which can save many lives.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0293093
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume18
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Dec 2023

Bibliographical note

Copyright: © 2023 Macgregor-Fairlie et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Keywords

  • Humans
  • Mycobacterium bovis
  • Spectrum Analysis, Raman
  • Pandemics
  • Tuberculosis/diagnosis
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis
  • Actinomycetales
  • Neural Networks, Computer
  • BCG Vaccine

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