Histological Examination of FFPE Pancreas Tumor Sections Combined with Imaging Mass Spectrometry Analysis at High Speed and Spatial Resolution

摘要

Pancreatic tumor tissue presenting distinct histological cell compartments were analyzed by MALDI imaging at high speed and spatial resolution with a new developed MALDI system. Spectral data from several hundred thousand pixels was subjected to hierarchical cluster analysis that allowed statistical grouping of similar spectra. Particular clusters nicely correlated with different histological areas present in the tissue. In addition, for each cluster individual molecule species were found to be highly correlated to a distinct histopathologicalentity. The advantage to combine hierarchical clustering of a MALDI imaging data set with histological and clinical features, make this technology an ideal tool for the rapid characterization of disease at the protein level to confirm diagnosis and potentially aid in therapeutic management.