Direct analysis of lipids in mouse brain using electrospray droplet impact/SIMS

Electrospray droplet impact (EDI)/secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a new desorption/ionization technique for mass spectrometry in which highly charged water clusters produced from the atmospheric-pressure electrospray are accelerated in vacuum by 10 kV and impact the sample deposited on the metal substrate. EDI/SIMS was shown to enhance intact molecular ion formation dramatically compared to conventional SIMS. EDI/SIMS has been successfully applied to the analysis of mouse brain without any sample preparation. Five types of lipids, i.e. phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylinositol (PI), galactocerebroside (GC) and sulfatide (ST), were readily detected from mouse brain section. In addition, by EDI/SIMS, six different regions of the mouse brain (cerebral cortex, corpus callosum, striatum, medulla oblongata, cerebellar cortex and cerebellar medulla) were examined. While GCs and STs were found to be rich in white matter, PIs were rich in gray matter.