MALDI-TOF MS and currently related proteomic technologies in reconciling bacterial systematics.

Abstract This book chapter presents an overview and discussion of the use of MALDI-TOF MS for fungal identification. The major known limitations of the technique for fungal taxonomy, and how to overcome these, are also discussed. Moreover, this should guarantee that spectra deposited in such MALDI-TOF MS database would remain public, preferably in open free access. To avoid misidentification, these stored spectra must be curated and based on well-established standard operating procedures. The number of spectra available within species needs to be increased to accommodate the diversity and geographic differences, unique strain traits and the varied culture conditions and procedures in order to establish a single public and open access MALDITOF MS database. This could then be used with metadata analysis and artificial intelligence algorithms, to provide reliable fungal identification.