Fig. 2

Reproducibility and specificity of MALDI-TOF MS spectra from exuviae of Aedes mosquitoes. a Four exuviae per species (i.e. Ae. albopictus and Ae. aegypti) and developmental stage (i.e. fourth-instar larvae and pupae) were used to construct the MSP dendrogram. The dendrogram was created using Biotyper v3.0 software and distance units correspond to the relative similarity of MS spectra. b The same four MS spectra per species and developmental stages were analysed using the composite correlation index (CCI) tool. Levels of MS spectra reproducibility are indicated in red and blue revealing relatedness and incongruence between spectra, respectively. The values correspond to the mean correlation coefficient and respective standard deviations obtained for paired condition comparisons. CCI were expressed as the mean ± standard deviation. c Principal components analysis (PCA) dimensional image from exuviae MS spectra of fourth-instar and pupae