Figure 1.

General overview of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) imaging. Tissue sections from frozen brain are cut by a cryomicrotome and transferred to a conductive glass slide. Tissue sections are coated with a specific matrix, depending on the nature of the biomolecule to be analyzed. MALDI-MS imaging allows simultaneous mapping of hundreds of multimodal substances in thin tissue sections with a lateral resolution down to a few μm. From a raster over the tissue and measurement of the peak intensities over thousands of spots, mass spectrometric images are generated at specific molecular weight values.