Summary
The joint activity of many small molecules, peptides and proteins in diseases is often related to their specific time and location of occurrence in cells and tissue. Imaging mass spectrometry is a new innovative technology for local proteomic analysis directly on biological tissue surfaces. In this part of the NPC program we propose to further develop imaging mass spectrometry to improve local peptide and protein identification and visualization capabilities directly from unstained and unlabelled thin tissue sections. New protocols for local tissue digestion will be developed and combined with tandem MS to improve the protein identification capabilities during imaging MS. The strategies will be combined into a new approach for 3-dimensional MS based imaging of small tumors and organs. The rendered 3D molecular images will be combined and compared with other microscopic molecular imaging techniques rendering a new tool for the visualization of molecular anatomy.