Ionic matrix for enhanced MALDI imaging mass spectrometry for identification of phospholipids in mouse liver and cerebellum tissue sections.

The ionic matrix (IM) is considered to be versatile for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) for the identification of a wide range of biomolecules due to its good solubility for a variety of analytes, formation of homogeneous crystals with analytes, and high vacuum stability. When these advantages are exploited, the performance of IM of α-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid butylamine (CHCAB) and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid butylamine (DHBB) was compared with other matrixes for the identification of phospholipids in standard mixtures and mouse liver tissue sections. The results showed that the IM of CHCAB caused higher signal intensity and allowed the detection of a number phospholipids such as phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylserine (PS) in addition to detection of phosphatidylcholine (PC) on the surface of the liver tissue sample. The IM of CHCAB was also used to identify the species of lipids present in different layers of cerebellum where the greater numbers of biomolecules were detected as compared to DHB matrix. Further, the feasibility of the proposed method was extended for the analysis of tryptic digested cytochrome c for increased signal intensity and number of peptide sequences in MALDI-MS. Thus, the application of IM to MALDI-MS could be a promising tool for imaging biomolecules in tissue sections in high throughput analyses with high sensitivity.