Fig. 2.

Scheme depicts the current state-of-the-art approach in ECM research, in which mass spectrometry techniques are used to determine protein abundance changes in two different situations within a tissue piece or an entire organ. After isolation of an organ the compositional and the spatial information of ECM protein components are not visible (left hand side). LC-MS/MS technology enables researcher to determine ECM protein abundance between two different conditions and/or quantitative protein amount. We believe that the next step in ECM research will be the spatiotemporal mapping of the ECM protein arrangement in decellularized healthy organs guided by LC-MS/MS experiments or unbiased for example during development or in comparison to respective inflamed situations such as cancer.