Accumulation of Bioactive Lipid Species in LPS-Induced Neuroinflammation Models Analysed with Multi-Modal Mass Spectrometry Imaging.

Neuroinflammation is a complex biological process related to a variety of pathologies, often requiring better understanding in order to develop new, targeted therapeutic interventions. Within this context, multimodal Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) has been used to characterise molecular changes in neuroinflammation for biomarker discovery not possible to other techniques. In this study, molecules including bioactive lipids were detected across inflamed regions of the brain in rats treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS).

Mass spectrometric imaging of brain tissue by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry--How do polyatomic primary beams C₆₀⁺, Ar₂₀₀₀⁺, water-doped Ar₂₀₀₀⁺ and (H₂O)₆₀₀₀⁺ compare?

Rationale: To discover the degree to which water-containing cluster beams increase secondary ion yield and reduce the matrix effect in time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) imaging of biological tissue.

Methods: The positive SIMS ion yields from model compounds, mouse brain lipid extract and mouse brain tissue together with mouse brain images were compared using 20 keV C60(+), Ar2000(+), water-doped Ar2000(+) and pure (H2O)6000(+) primary beams.

Results: Water-containing cluster beams where the beam energy per nucleon (E/nucleon) ≈ 0.

Enhancing ion yields in time-of-flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry: a comparative study of argon and water cluster primary beams.

Following from our previous Letter on this topic, this Article reports a detailed study of time-of-flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) positive ion spectra generated from a set of model biocompounds (arginine, trehalose, DPPC, and angiotensin II) by water cluster primary ion beams in comparison to argon cluster beams over a range of cluster sizes and energies. Sputter yield studies using argon and water beams on arginine and Irganox 1010 have confirmed that the sputter yields using water cluster beams lie on the same universal sputtering curve derived by Seah for argon cluster beams. Thus, increased ion yield using water cluster beams must arise from increased ionization.

Peptide structural analysis using continuous Ar cluster and C60 ion beams.

A novel application of time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) with continuous Ar cluster beams to peptide analysis was investigated. In order to evaluate peptide structures, it is necessary to detect fragment ions related to multiple neighbouring amino acid residues. It is, however, difficult to detect these using conventional ToF-SIMS primary ion beams such as Bi cluster beams.