The Maastricht Multimodal Molecular Imaging Institute (M4I), Division of Imaging Mass Spectrometry, Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel 50, 6229 ER Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Analyst. 2019 Oct 21;144(20):5953-5958. doi: 10.1039/c9an00944b. Epub 2019 Aug 16.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common musculoskeletal diseases, characterized by the progressive deterioration of articular cartilage. Although the disease has been well studied in the past few years, the endogenous metabolic composition and more importantly the spatial information of these molecules in cartilage is still poorly understood. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) has been previously used for the investigation of the bimolecular distribution of proteins and lipids through the in situ analysis of cartilage tissue sections. MALDI-MSI as a tool to detect metabolites remains challenging, as these species have low abundance and degrade rapidly. In this work, we present a complete methodology, from sample preparation to data analysis for the detection of endogenous metabolites on cartilage by MSI. Our results demonstrate for the first time the ability to detect small molecules in fragile, challenging tissues through an optimized protocol, and render MSI as a tool towards a better understanding of OA.
骨关节炎（OA）是最常见的肌肉骨骼疾病之一，其特征是关节软骨的进行性恶化。尽管近年来对该疾病进行了深入研究，但对软骨中内源性代谢成分，更重要的是这些分子的空间信息仍了解甚少。基质辅助激光解吸/电离（MALDI）质谱成像（MSI）先前已被用于通过原位分析软骨组织切片来研究蛋白质和脂质的双分子分布。MALDI-MSI 作为一种检测代谢物的工具仍然具有挑战性，因为这些物质丰度低且降解迅速。在这项工作中，我们提出了一种完整的方法，从样品制备到数据分析，用于通过 MSI 检测软骨中的内源性代谢物。我们的结果首次证明了通过优化方案在脆弱、具有挑战性的组织中检测小分子的能力，并使 MSI 成为更好地理解 OA 的一种工具。
