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Imaging of Biological Tissues by Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry
Published on: July 12, 2013
Enhanced imaging of endogenous metabolites by negative ammonia assisted DESI/PI mass spectrometry
Li Zhan1, Chengyuan Liu2, Keke Qi2
1Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China.
Abstract:
In this work, endogenous metabolites in mouse brain tissue were imaged by negative desorption electrospray ionization (DESI), ammonia assisted DESI (aa-DESI), DESI/post-photoionization (DESI/PI), and ammonia assisted DESI/PI (aa-DESI/PI) mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) strategies. The combined effect of ammonia additive and post-photoionization was found to play an important role in the enhancement of sensitivity and coverage for endogenous analytes under ambient conditions. Compared with DESI, aa-DESI/PI can provide increased signal intensities for metabolites up to 37.1-fold, as well as the imaging of nine more small metabolites (m/z < 350) (26 for aa-DESI/PI and 17 for DESI) in mouse brain tissue. The results of Pearson correlation analysis and KEGG pathway analysis showed that the enhanced imaging strategy of aa-DESI/PI can facilitate the study of endogenous metabolic pathways and molecular networks. Moreover, the imaging results of mouse tumor tissue demonstrated the promising application of aa-DESI/PI in tumor research.
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