Emerging applications of flow cytometry for clinical microbiology

During the last years, considerable effort has been devoted to the development of rapid and sensitive methods for microbial pathogens detection and antibiotic susceptibility assay. Flow cytometry (FCM) is an excellent tool that could provide both speed and specificity for the clinical microbiology. FCM can be applied directly on the clinical sample, bypassing the need for microbiological cultures and enabling earlier clinical decision. This could both improve the emergency treatment of infected patients and avoid the treatment in case of negative samples. This minireview briefly describes the current applications of FCM in clinical microbiology, for the detection and enumeration of microbial pathogens (differentiation of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria using fluorescent nucleic acid binding dyes, investigation of bacteriuria), study of microbial physiology, assessment of antimicrobial susceptibility (both for bacterial and fungal strains), establishing drug synergies and investigating the resistance mechanisms.