Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS): a novel technology for identifying microbes causing infectious diseases

Abstract

With the advent of improved experimental techniques and enhanced precision, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) offers a robust tool for probing the chemical constituents of samples of interest in biological sciences. As the interest continues to grow rapidly, the domain of study encompasses a variety of applications vis-à-vis biological species and microbes. LIBS is basically an atomic emission spectroscopy of plasma produced by the high-power pulsed laser which is tightly focused on the surface of any kinds of target materials in any phase. Due to its experimental simplicity, and versatility, LIBS has achieved its high degree of interest particularly in the fields of agricultural science, environmental science, medical science, forensic sciences, and biology. It has become a strong and sensitive elemental analysis tool as compared to the traditional gold standard techniques. As such, it offers a handy, rapid, and flexible elemental measurement of the sample compositions, together with the added benefits of less cumbersome sample preparation requirements. This technique has extensively been used to detect various microorganisms, extending the horizon from bacteria, molds, to yeasts, and spores on surfaces, while also being successful in sensing diseasecausing viruses. LIBS-based probe has also enabled successful detection of bacteria in agriculture as well. In order for good quality processing of food, LIBS is also being used to detect and identify bacteria such as Salmonella enteric serovar typhimurium that causes food contamination. Differences in soil bacteria isolated from different mining sites are a very good indicator of relative environmental soil quality. In this connection, LIBS has effectively been employed to discriminate both the inter-and intra-site differences of the soil quality across varying mining sites. Therefore, this article summarizes the basic theory and use of LIBS for identifying microbes causing serious agricultural and environmental infectious diseases.

Understanding the relationship between viral infections and trace elements from a metallomics perspective: implications for COVID-19

“…Furthermore, as many metals are linked to biomolecules (proteins and metabolites), separation techniques, such as liquid chromatography (LC) 23 , 24 and capillary electrophoresis (CE), 25 , 26 have been required in metallomics studies. LA-ICP-MS (laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry), 27 , 28 SIMS (secondary ion mass spectrometry), 29 , 30 X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), 31 , 32 and LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) 33 , 34 are also important techniques to obtain information on the spatial distribution of metals in solid samples, such as tissues and cells. 17 , 19 , 35 , 36 …”

Classification of minerals and the assessment of lithium and beryllium content in granitoid rocks by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

“…5 There is ample demonstration in the literature that the feature-rich LIBS spectra can be successfully used for the accurate identication or discrimination of a variety of samples (chemical ngerprinting). [6][7][8][9][10][11] Micrometer-resolution local analysis or elemental mapping can also be done on solid samples, allowing for material science, medical, environmental or industrial applications, [1][2][3]9,[12][13][14] even in the eld.…”

Feature‐level fusion of laser‐induced breakdown spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy for improving support vector machine in clinical bacteria identification

“…[ 1,2 ] As a new elemental detection method, LIBS has been used in identification of many kinds of substance with chemometrics, for instance, biomedical samples, [ 3–5 ] forensic evidences, [ 6–9 ] explosives, [ 10 ] plants, [ 11 ] alloy, [ 12 ] ore, [ 13 ] nutrient food, [ 14–16 ] and pathogenic microorganisms. [ 17 ] However, for substances with the same elemental composition, the feature line wavelengths are always similar. If the sample shape and type are similar, the similar matrix effects will cause very little spectral difference.…”