Current Status and Future Perspectives of Mass Spectrometry Imaging

Abstract

Mass spectrometry imaging is employed for mapping proteins, lipids and metabolites in biological tissues in a morphological context. Although initially developed as a tool for biomarker discovery by imaging the distribution of protein/peptide in tissue sections, the high sensitivity and molecular specificity of this technique have enabled its application to biomolecules, other than proteins, even in cells, latent finger prints and whole organisms. Relatively simple, with no requirement for labelling, homogenization, extraction or reconstitution, the technique has found a variety of applications in molecular biology, pathology, pharmacology and toxicology. By discriminating the spatial distribution of biomolecules in serial sections of tissues, biomarkers of lesions and the biological responses to stressors or diseases can be better understood in the context of structure and function. In this review, we have discussed the advances in the different aspects of mass spectrometry imaging processes, application towards different disciplines and relevance to the field of toxicology.

Imaging mass spectrometry assists in the classification of diagnostically challenging atypical Spitzoid neoplasms

“…It has been used to clarify the molecular signatures of various types of cancer and other diseases. 23-26 Molecular signatures usually present as a unique combination of 5-20 proteins and enable a specific diagnosis. 26 Protein and peptide analysis is superior to gene expression analysis, as it represents the actual functional state of the disease/tumor rather than the potential risk of developing it.…”

The potential of mass spectrometry imaging in plant metabolomics: a review

“…The use of mass spectrometry for the imaging of biological systems has been a topic of investigation by several leading MSI groups and these reviews give a detailed overview of the potential use of MSI technologies to answer a diverse range of biological questions (Caprioli et al 1997;Cornett et al 2007;Kapoor et al 2009;Andersson et al 2010;Amstalden van Hove et al 2010;Svatos 2010;Watrous et al 2011;Dill et al 2011;Kaspar et al 2011;Vickerman 2011;Peukert et al 2012;Alexandrov 2012;Nimesh et al 2013;Peukert et al 2014;Bjarnholt et al 2014). The use of MSI has seen several new developments and applications that are changing the direction of MSI analysis away from imaging of intact proteins and actually towards the analysis of lower mass range metabolites (Römpp and Karst 2015).…”

Mass Spectrometry Imaging of Therapeutics from Animal Models to Three-Dimensional Cell Cultures

“…The initial step in data analysis requires pre-processing: baseline correction, noise reduction, normalization, spectra smoothing and recalibration, which allows cleaning of the spectra from baseline and background noise, facilitating the selection of peaks of interest 61 . The next step involves data representation using multivariate statistical analysis of the processed spectra and spatial segmentation based on clustering 61–62 .…”