Relationship between MALDI IMS intensity and measured quantity of selected phospholipids in rat brain sections

MALDI IMS positive ion images of rat brain show a regional distribution of phosphocholine species that is striking in the apparent distinctiveness and reproducibility of such depictions. The interpretation of these images, specifically the relationship between MALDI IMS ion intensity and the amount of the phosphocholine (PC) species in the tissue is complicated by numerous factors, such as ion suppression, ion molecule chemistry, and effects of tissue structure. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that the intensity of PC molecular species does relate to the quantity of molecules in a tissue sample. A set of comparison studies for a limited but representative selection of cell-derived PC molecular species was carried out using LC/MS/MS to measure the amounts of these species in brain tissue extracts. There was good correlation between the MALDI IMS ion abundance of PC molecular species and the relative abundance of corresponding PC molecular species in microdissected regions analyzed by LC/MS/MS.