Detection and Visualization of Food-derived Polyphenols by Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry Imaging

Abstract

Food-derived polyphenols have health benefits owing to their ability to prevent some diseases. Knowledge of their bioavailabilities and metabolism is important for understanding the mechanisms underlying their benefits. Thus, mass spectrometry (MS)-based analytical techniques, such as liquid chromatography-MS (LC-MS), that are capable of highly sensitive and simultaneous detection of absorbed polyphenols and their metabolites are essential tools in this field. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) imaging is currently used in biological sciences for visualizing the spatial information of various compounds, such as peptides, proteins, lipids, drugs, and food compounds, in various biological tissues. However, the application of MALDI-MS imaging to polyphenols is challenging owing to the lack of appropriate matrix reagents for visualizing (or detecting) polyphenols absorbed in target biological tissues. This review highlights the development of the MALDI-MS imaging technique for the detection and visualization of food-derived polyphenols. First, the development of new matrices and matrix additives for the detection and visualization of polyphenols is discussed, followed by their introduction to inhibitor-aided MALDI-MS imaging for the elucidation of intestinal absorption routes and the metabolic behaviors of polyphenols. The MALDI-MS imaging technique shows great potential as a novel analytical tool for elucidating the bioavailabilities of food-derived polyphenols.

A trip of peptides to the brain

“…Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) imaging technique is an extensive and advanced visualization tool having wide applications in spatial localization of targets in terms of tissue distribution, such as immunostaining. This is because it possesses great advantage of non-targeting detection for a wide mass range of ionizable compounds such as proteins, lipids, and drug molecules with no use of antigens (Nguyen et al 2019;Yoshimura & Zaima 2020). The outstanding observation for brain visualization study is the report by Shariatgorji et al (2014), who simultaneously visualized neurotransmitters, including tyramine, dopamine, and acetylcholine, in mouse brain tissues using MALDI-MS imaging in combination with amine-specific derivatization.…”

Visualization of Food Polyphenols

“…Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) is considered an ideal complementary technique since it can simultaneously visualize the spatial distribution of compounds and their metabolites in a tissue section without any requirement of extraction or purification steps. Therefore, MALDI-MSI has been widely used for visualizing the localization of drugs and food compounds in plants and in animal and human tissue upon oral administration (3). The present review highlights the development of MALDI-MSI as a promising technique for visualization of food polyphenols in biological tissues.…”

“…On the other hand, polyphenols are metabolites occurring during the growth, development and ripening processes of plant. Thus understanding the distribution of polyphenols in plant tissue is important to gain insight into their biological processes (3). In order to analyze food polyphenols and their metabolites, liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) analytical techniques have been widely used due to their high sensitivity and throughput characteristics.…”