Layer-specific sulfatide localization in rat hippocampus middle molecular layer is revealed by nanoparticle-assisted laser desorption/ionization imaging mass spectrometry.

Lipids are major structural component of the brain and play key roles in signaling functions in the central nervous system (CNS), such as the hippocampus. In particular, sulfatide is an abundant glycosphingolipid component of both the central and the peripheral nervous system and is an essential lipid component of myelin membranes. Lack of sulfatide is observed in myelin deformation and neurological deficits. Previous studies with antisulfatide antibody have investigated distribution of sulfatide expression in neurons; however, this method cannot distinguish the differences of sulfatide lipid species raised by difference of carbon-chain length in the ceramide portion in addition to the differences of sulfatide and seminolipid. In this study, we solved the problem by our recently developed nanoparticle-assisted laser desorption/ionization (nano-PALDI)-based imaging mass spectrometry (IMS). We revealed that the level of sulfatide in the middle molecular layer was significantly higher than that in granule cell layers and the inner molecular layer in the dentate gyrus of rat hippocampus.