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Updated: Jul 4, 2025
Visualization of Metabolites Identified in the Spatial Metabolome of Traditional Chinese Medicine Using DESI-MSI
Published on: December 16, 2022
Biomarker Identification in Liver Cancers Using Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (DESI-MS)
Hui Chen1,2,3, Sylvère Durand1,2, Olivia Bawa4
1Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Equipe labellisée par la Ligue contre le cancer, Inserm U1138, Université Paris Cité, Sorbonne Université, Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.
Abstract:
Liver cancers are characterized by interindividual and intratumoral heterogeneity, which makes early diagnosis and the development of therapies challenging. Desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) imaging is a potent and sensitive MS ionization technique for direct, unaltered 2D and 3D imaging of metabolites in complex biological samples. Indeed, DESI gently desorbs and ionizes analyte molecules from the sample surface using an electrospray source of highly charged aqueous spray droplets in ambient conditions. DESI-MS imaging of biological samples allows untargeted analysis and characterization of metabolites in liver cancers to identify new biomarkers of malignancy. In this chapter, we described a detailed protocol using liver cancer samples collected and stored for histopathology examination, either as frozen or as formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded specimens. Such hepatocellular carcinoma samples can be subjected to DESI-MS analyses, illustrating the capacity of spatially resolved metabolomics to distinguish malignant lesions from adjacent normal liver tissue.
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