Histological examination with a deep link between functional metabolites and tissue structure and biofunctions will provide important in situ biochemical information, and then essentially reveal what has happened in tissue at the molecular level. However, due to the complexity and heterogeneity of tissue samples and the large number of metabolites, it is still a challenge to globally map the diverse metabolites, especially for those low-abundance functional ones. Here, a sensitive air flow-assisted desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging method for the mapping of a broad range of metabolites is presented. It exhibits properties characteristic of wide coverage, high sensitivity, wide dynamic range, rapid analysis procedure, and high specificity for tissue metabolites imaging. More than 1500 metabolites, including cholines, polyamines, amino acids, carnitines, nucleosides, nucleotides, nitrogen bases, organic acids, carbohydrates, cholesterol sulfate, cholic acid, lipids, etc., can be visualized in an untargeted analysis. The distribution of metabolites shows good spatial match with tissue histological structure and biofunctions in heterogeneous rat kidney, rat brain, and human esophageal cancer tissue. This method possesses the ability to globally showcase the molecular processes in tissue, and provide an insightful way for structural and functional molecular recognition in histological examination, even for intraoperative decision-making.
Keywords: functional metabolites; mass spectrometry imaging; molecular histology; sensitive and wide coverage.