Identification of Leishmania by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry using a free web-based application and a dedicated mass spectral library.

Human leishmaniasis are widely spread diseases with different clinical forms caused by about 20 species within the Leishmania genus. Leishmania species identification is relevant for therapeutic management and prognosis, especially for cutaneous and muco-cutaneous forms. Several methods are available to identify Leishmania species from culture, but they have not been standardized for the majority of the currently described species, with the exception of MultiLocus Enzyme Electrophoresis. Moreover, these techniques are expensive, time-consuming and not available in all laboratories. Within the last decade, mass spectrometry (MS) has been adapted for microorganism identification, including Leishmania However, no commercial reference mass spectral database is available. In this study, a reference mass spectral library (MSL) for Leishmania isolates, accessible through a free web-based application (mass spectral identification, MSI), was constructed and tested. It includes mass spectral data for 33 different Leishmania species, including species that infect humans, animals and phlebotomine vectors. Four laboratories on two continents evaluated MSI performance using 268 samples of which 231 were Leishmania strains. All Leishmania strains, but one, were correctly identified at least at the complex level. A risk of species misidentification within the L. donovani, L. guyanensis and L. braziliensis complexes was observed, as already reported with other techniques. The tested application was reliable, with identification results comparable to those obtained with reference methods, but with a more favorable cost-efficiency ratio. This free online identification system relies on a scalable database and can be implemented directly in the user's computers.