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Record W4409792855 · doi:10.1139/cjm-2025-0035

Rapid identification of <i>Fusarium</i> species causing head blight in Canada using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry

2025· article· en· W4409792855 on OpenAlexafffundvenueabout
Shimosh Kurera, Bhaktiben Patel, Tehreem Ashfaq, Maria Eckhardt, Janice Bamforth, Niradha Withana Gamage, Gurcharn S. Brar, Linda J. Harris, María Antonia Henríquez, Rajagopal Subramaniam, Xiben Wang, Zamir K. Punja, Curtis Pozniak, Matthew G. Bakker, Sean Walkowiak

Bibliographic record

VenueCanadian Journal of Microbiology · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicBacterial Identification and Susceptibility Testing
Canadian institutionsAgriculture and Agri-Food CanadaUniversity of SaskatchewanSimon Fraser UniversityUniversity of AlbertaUniversity of Manitoba
FundersNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaSaskatchewan Wheat Development CommissionManitoba Crop AllianceWestern Grains Research Foundation
KeywordsFusariumBiologyMass spectrometrySpecies identificationMycotoxinMatrix-assisted laser desorption/ionizationBotanyChromatographyChemistryGeneticsDesorption

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Fusarium head blight is a limitation to grain production and can be caused by several different Fusarium species. We evaluated the ability of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) to perform species identifications. The method generates a unique peptide mass fingerprint (PMF) for each sample that can be matched to a reference library. We first created a reference library of PMF profiles for Fusarium species from across Canada. Then, we tested the library to perform identifications using two validation panels. The first panel consisted of 820 fungal isolates from wheat (2021–2023 harvest years) and the second was 74 fungal isolates from oat and barley (2022 harvest year). The species identity of samples from the validation panels was confirmed with high-throughput quantitative PCR using species-specific DNA markers. The first validation panel was mostly F. graminearum and there was 95% overlap between the MALDI-TOF MS and DNA-based identifications. The second panel was mostly F. poae and the identifications from the two methods had 86% overlap. Our findings indicate that MALDI-TOF MS biotyping is sensitive enough to identify Fusarium strains to their species complexes and certain Fusarium strains to the species level.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.001
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Bench or experimental · Consensus signal: Bench or experimental
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.306
Threshold uncertainty score0.615

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.001
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0010.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.000
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.016
GPT teacher head0.232
Teacher spread0.216 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designBench or experimental
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations2
Published2025
Admission routes4
Has abstractyes

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