Mass spectral imaging (MSI) adds a spatial dimension to MS-based biochemical analysis. It delivers insight into the local distribution of biomolecules (e.g. proteins, peptides, and metabolites) throughout an organic tissue section. Current approaches for the examination of the vast amounts of data generated in a MSI experiment have either focused on providing a spatial answer to a mass-driven hypothesis (eg. ion images of a single mass species) or have focused on disassembling the measurements into a set of tissue region trends in a data-driven manner (eg. PCA). The opportunity to examine the tissue and look for ions of interest using a morphological region-driven hypothesis rather than a molecule-driven hypothesis has been unavailable due to lack of a suitable method.
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