Identification and antimicrobial resistance profiling of Pseudomonas aeruginosa using multi-excitation Raman spectroscopy and computational analytics.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a global healthcare challenge, where overprescription of antibiotics contributes to its prevalence. We have developed a rapid multi-excitation Raman spectroscopy methodology (MX-Raman) that outperforms conventional Raman spectroscopy and enhances specificity. A support vector machine (SVM) model was used to identify 20 clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa with an accuracy of 93% using MX-Raman. Antibiotic sensitivity profiles for tobramycin, ceftazidime, ciprofloxacin, and imipenem were generated for the bacterial strains and compared with their Raman spectral signatures using MX-Raman. The 20 clinical strains were distinguished according to AMR profiles. Nine models were assessed for AMR classification performance, and SVM performed best, classifying AMR profiles of each strain with 91-96% accuracy. These data provide the basis for a new rapid clinical diagnostic platform that could screen for bacterial infection and recommend effective antibiotic treatment ahead of confirmation by conventional techniques, improving clinical outcomes and reducing the spread of AMR.