Imaging Proteomics

On-tissue enzymatic digestions for direct protein identification
A participation in the Netherlands Proteomics Center - NPC

Mass spectrometry is rapidly maturing as a powerful tool for proteomics applications as new sample-preparation approaches, instrumentation developments and bioinformatics tools for data analysis become increasingly available. No other technology can now match both the throughput and the molecular information content that mass spectrometry provides. Instrument manufacturers have made a tremendous effort in the last decade and have come up with innovative instrumentation which continuously allows more speed, sensitivity and specificity for standard high-throughput proteomics. As a partner in the Netherlands Proteomics Center (NPC II) AMOLF aims to progress beyond the standard mass spectrometry based analysis. Therefore, we have deployed a platform for spatially resolved mass spectrometric proteomics imaging, which will be further developed and embedded in the NPC. Imaging mass spectrometry is developed and combined with new proteomics tools to improve local peptide and protein identification directly from unstained and unlabelled thin tissue sections. New protocols for local tissue digestion are under study where tandem MS is used 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 xenografted tumors and organs. The rendered 3D molecular images will be evaluated and compared with high resolution MRI 3D images rendering a new tool for the visualization of molecular anatomy.