Mass spectrometry imaging advances cancer tissue analysis

In the field of cancer research, the prospect of mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) technology is broad, but the application of this technology is still limited by many problems such as the original data preprocessing, image accuracy, and image recognition capabilities.

Researchers from Imperial College London now report in PNAS magazine that they have developed a new method that can effectively solve the above problems. The new method will change the way the body tissues are detected, thereby facilitating the analysis of cancer organizations into the digital age.

Mass spectrometry imaging technology mainly uses mass spectrometry to directly scan biological samples and analyze the structure, spatial and temporal distribution of chemical constituents in cells or tissues. This imaging method is not limited to specific one or more protein molecules and can find each protein molecule in a biological tissue sample and provide accurate information on their spatial distribution in the tissue. As early as a few years ago, some scientists proposed the use of this technology to determine the type of biological tissue, but they have not designed a practical and effective method.

This latest method utilizes desorption electrospray ionization technology to optimize data preprocessing, improve image accuracy, and enhance the biochemical characteristics of different biological tissue types by extracting biomolecular specific molecular imprints to enhance image recognition capabilities.

The researchers said that using the newly developed integrated biological information platform, a large amount of human body tissue specific information data obtained by mass spectrometry imaging technology can be used to build various types of tissue databases. Through multi-sample analysis and comparison with traditional histological analysis results, the computer can learn to identify different types of tissues so that the analysis of cancerous tissues becomes relatively simple and efficient. They used their own designed workflow for the detection of rectal colon cancer tissue and they performed well.

Compared with standard histological methods that will only produce complete results in a few weeks, using mass spectrometry to perform a single test requires more detailed information in just a few hours. It not only shows whether the tissue has undergone cancerous changes, but also shows Which type and subtype of cancer is this? This information is important for doctors to choose the most effective treatment.

The researchers pointed out that since the late 19th century staining technology was used to display the organizational structure, the analysis methods for histopathological samples have rarely changed. Until today, staining is still the mainstream method of hospital histology analysis, and it becomes more and more complicated and costly. Mass spectrometry may change the basic paradigm of histology. Scientists will no longer define the type of tissue based on their structure but on their chemical composition. Future tests no longer rely on the eyes of experts, but on the basis of massive data, the information obtained by only one test is far more than that obtained by multiple traditional histological tests.

They said that the new study overcomes some of the obstacles encountered in the practical application of mass spectrometry imaging technology and will be the first step in creating the next generation of fully automated histological analysis.