CPSA Digest 2003

Day 2

Vendor Session - Drug Discovery Technologies & Applications

Application of MALDI-MS Imaging Software for Small Molecule Profiling in Tissue Samples

Mass spectrometry is an extremely powerful technique in determining the molecular weight of a sample, especially when combined with techniques such as HPLC. When it comes to the analysis of tissue samples, however, LC-MS analysis provides information on the individual compounds in the tissue but all spatial relationship information on how those compounds are distributed throughout the tissue is lost. The information on the spatial distribution of drugs in tissues is extremely important in determining whether or not a drug is reaching its target site or accumulating in the tissue. To address this, molecular imaging of drugs in tissues using MALDI with hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight (QqTOF) has started gaining more attention recently. One of the strengths of combining a QqTOF with MALDI is the ability to perform product ion scans, which can improve signal-to-noise dramatically for the MALDI analysis of small molecules. We have developed a novel molecular imaging software package to acquire and process MALDI QqTOF data. This poster will provide detailed information on the imaging features of the software and show its use in the analysis of drugs in tissue samples.

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