Analysis of bacterial biotyping datasets with a mass-based phylonumerics approach.

A mass tree, phylonumerics approach, is implemented for the first time with expressed protein mass data acquired in biotyping applications. It is shown, for two separate and diverse bacterial datasets, that the MassTree algorithm can be used to build phylogenetic trees in a single step that mirror those output by biotyping analysis software in the form of a main spectral profile (MSP) dendrogram or alike. Adapted for these applications to accommodate higher mass inputs and large mass error tolerances for pairwise matching, the mass tree algorithm and approach offers an alternative to commercial biotyping platforms by utilizing datasets acquired from any mass spectrometer without the need for specialized and expensive software.