MALDI Imaging and Segmentation Analysis of Human Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) using the MALDI-7090 and IMAGEREVEAL™MS

User Benefits

- High speed and high spatial resolution imaging analysis on the MALDI-7090 enabled an accurate reproduction of the colon architectural structure at near-cellular level. - Segmentation analysis using intuitive IMAGEREVEAL MS software identified significant areas corroborated by microscopy findings.

Introduction

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) are chronic and relapsing inflammatory conditions of unknown aetiology. Current treatments are not universally effective and can have severe adverse effects. Therefore, early detection and precise identification of the type of disease is important in order to apply the correct treatment. Colon tissue is complex and contains different types of cells, and therefore a cell-specific analytical tool is required to improve diagnosis and prognosis. MALDI imaging mass spectrometry of lipids may facilitate this, as the signature and distribution of molecules that may help identify the metabolic stage of the tissues, can be obtained directly from tissue sections. While MALDI imaging analysis combined with optical microscopy can provide valuable insight into the molecular species that are responsible for the pathological alteration of tissue structures, a more advanced data mining by means of computational methods may be required for a better, thorough understanding of the metabolic changes that characterise IBD diseases. Segmentation analysis is a popular computational method that is often used in conjunction with MALDI imaging data. Here, we present an imaging mass spectrometry study of endoscopic biopsies obtained from patients with IBD acquired at 10 micron (µm) spatial resolution using the Shimadzu MALDI- 7090 MALDI TOF-TOF mass spectrometer, combined with the Shimadzu IMAGEREVEAL MS imaging analysis software for data and segmentation analysis. The high spatial resolution capability of the MALDI-7090 was key for resolving the main colon tissue structures (crypts, lamina propria and muscularis mucosae), while the segmentation analysis enabled identification of both areas of inflammation and the nuclei component of the colonocytes, based on the microscopy analysis.

January 26, 2023 GMT