The most evident contribution of spectroscopy to
clinical microbiology has been in microbial epidemiology.
In recent years, Raman spectroscopic
analysis (RSA) has been validated for the bacterial
typing of different species. Although RSA has been
proposed to be capable of distinguishing virtually
all bacterial species, definitive data are missing.
RSA is a label-free, optical technology based on the
non-elastic scattering of light by the molecules. The
change in wavelength is molecule-specific and can
be displayed in a Raman spectrum. These changes
can be seen as spectroscopic fingerprints and can
be used to visualize the comprehensive molecular
composition. Several studies concluded decisively
that the typing of different strains belonging to
a single species can be performed appropriately.
The molecular typing of various species such as
E. coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus,
and Klebsiella pneumoniae produced similar results
that were equal in quality to other gold standard
techniques