Improving the Diagnosis of Bloodstream Infections: PCR Coupled with Mass Spectrometry

Table 1

Comparison between PLEX-ID and the new version of PCR/ESI-MS.

	PLEX-ID	New version
Volume of whole blood analyzed	1.25 mL	5 mL
Samples per run of nucleic acid extraction	1–24 (24-well plate format, manual dispensation of reagents and specimens)	1–6 (ready-to-use individual reagent cartridges)
Minimum number of samples during MS analysis	6 (96-well plate)	1 (one individual 16-well strip per specimen)
Preanalytical analysis equipment	4 (mechanical lysis, magnetic nucleic acid extraction, fluid handler, and thermocycler)	3 (mechanical lysis, magnetic nucleic acid extraction, and thermocycler)
Analytic equipment	1 large instrument (desalting and MS in the same instrument)	2 bench-top instruments (separation of desalting and MS)
Time-to-result	6 h	5-6 h

ESI-MS: electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.