Anderton Christopher R, Chu Rosalie K, Tolić Nikola, Creissen Alain, Paša-Tolić Ljiljana
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA.
HTX Technologies, LLC, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
J Am Soc Mass Spectrom. 2016 Mar;27(3):556-9. doi: 10.1007/s13361-015-1324-6. Epub 2016 Jan 4.
The ability to visualize biochemical interactions between microbial communities using MALDI MSI has provided tremendous insights into a variety of biological fields. Matrix application using a sieve proved to be incredibly useful, but it has many limitations that include uneven matrix coverage and limitation in the types of matrices that could be employed in studies. Recently, there has been a concerted effort to improve matrix application for studying agar plated microbial cultures, many of which utilized automated matrix sprayers. Here, we describe the usefulness of using a robotic sprayer for matrix application. The robotic sprayer has two-dimensional control over where matrix is applied, and a heated capillary that allows for rapid drying of the applied matrix. This method provided a significant increase in MALDI sensitivity over the sieve method, as demonstrated by FT-ICR MS analysis, facilitating the ability to gain higher lateral resolution MS images of Bacillus subtilis than previously reported. This method also allowed for the use of different matrices to be applied to the culture surfaces.
使用基质辅助激光解吸电离质谱成像（MALDI MSI）可视化微生物群落之间生化相互作用的能力，为多个生物学领域提供了深刻见解。事实证明，使用筛网进行基质应用非常有用，但它有许多局限性，包括基质覆盖不均匀以及研究中可使用的基质类型有限。最近，人们齐心协力改进用于研究琼脂平板培养微生物的基质应用方法，其中许多方法采用了自动基质喷雾器。在此，我们描述了使用机器人喷雾器进行基质应用的实用性。该机器人喷雾器可对基质应用位置进行二维控制，并且有一个加热毛细管，能够使应用的基质快速干燥。如傅里叶变换离子回旋共振质谱（FT-ICR MS）分析所示，这种方法相比筛网法显著提高了MALDI灵敏度，有助于获得比以前报道的更高横向分辨率的枯草芽孢杆菌质谱图像。这种方法还允许将不同的基质应用于培养表面。
