Deep Learning–Assisted Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering for Rapid Bacterial Identification

Bloodstream infection (BSI) is characterized by the presence of viable microorganisms in the bloodstream and may induce systemic immune responses. Early and appropriate antibiotic usage is crucial to effectively treating BSI. However, conventional culture-based microbiological diagnostics are time-consuming and cannot provide timely bacterial identification for subsequent antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST) and clinical decision-making. To address this issue, modern microbiological diagnostics have been developed, such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), which is a sensitive, label-free, and quick bacterial detection method measuring specific bacterial metabolites. In this study, we aim to integrate a new deep learning (DL) method, Vision Transformer (ViT), with bacterial SERS spectral analysis to build the SERS-DL model for rapid identification of Gram type, species, and resistant strains. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we used 11,774 SERS spectra obtained directly from eight common bacterial species in clinical blood samples without artificial introduction as the training dataset for the SERS-DL model. Our results showed that ViT achieved excellent identification accuracy of 99.30% for Gram type and 97.56% for species. Moreover, we employed transfer learning by using the Gram-positive species identifier as a pre-trained model to perform the antibiotic-resistant strain task. The identification accuracy of methicillin-resistant and -susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA and MSSA) can reach 98.5% with only 200-dataset requirement. In summary, our SERS-DL model has great potential to provide a quick clinical reference to determine the bacterial Gram type, species, and even resistant strains, which can guide early antibiotic usage in BSI.