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  • Review Article
  • Published:

Mass spectrometry imaging: a novel technology in rheumatology

Nature Reviews Rheumatology volume 13, pages 52–63 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Key Points

  • Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) enables the determination of the relative abundance and spatial distribution of biomolecules in tissue sections without labelling or staining

  • Studies of joint samples have demonstrated that MSI can provide complementary information to histology and histochemistry for rheumatic disorders

  • MSI has revealed the identity and distribution of several peptides, lipids and chemical elements in cartilage, synovium and bone from patients with rheumatic diseases

  • Although MSI is currently mainly used in research, this technology might soon be introduced into clinical practice owing to rapid technological improvements

Abstract

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is used to determine the relative abundance and spatial distribution of biomolecules such as peptides, proteins, lipids and other organic compounds in tissue sections by their molecular masses. This technique provides a sensitive and label-free approach for high-resolution imaging, and is currently used in an increasing number of biomedical applications such as biomarker discovery, tissue classification and drug monitoring. Owing to technological advances in the past 5 years in diverse MSI strategies, this technology is expected to become a standard tool in clinical practice and provides information complementary to that obtained using existing methods. Given that MSI is able to extract mass-spectral signatures from pathological tissue samples, this technique provides a novel platform to study joint-related tissues affected by rheumatic diseases. In rheumatology, MSI has been performed on articular cartilage, synovium and bone to increase the understanding of articular destruction and to characterize diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. In this Review, we provide an overview of MSI technology and of the studies in which joint tissues have been analysed by use of this methodology. This approach might increase knowledge of rheumatic pathologies and ultimately prompt the development of targeted strategies for their management.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of a typical MALDI-MSI workflow.
Figure 2: Representative MSI data obtained from human joints.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Berta Cillero-Pastor, Maastricht Multimodal Molecular Imaging Institute (M4I), Maastricht, Netherlands, for kindly providing the MSI images. This work is funded by grants from Fondo Investigación Sanitaria-Spain (PI12/00329, PI14/01707, CIBER-CB06/01/0040, RETIC-RIER-RD12/0009/0018). B.R. is funded by Xunta de Galicia (IN606B-2016/004), and C.R.R. by the Miguel Servet II program from Fondo Investigación Sanitaria-Spain (CPII15/0013). The Proteomics Unit belongs to ProteoRed, PRB2-ISCIII, supported by grant PT13/0001.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grupo de Proteómica, ProteoRed, Servicio de Reumatología, Instituto de Investigación Biomédica (INIBIC), Complexo Hospitalario Universitario A Coruña (CHUAC) Sergas, Universidad de A Coruña (UDC), As Xubias 84, 15006 A, Coruña, Spain

    Beatriz Rocha, Cristina Ruiz-Romero & Francisco J. Blanco

  2. CIBER-BBN Instituto de Salud Carlos III, INIBIC-CHUAC, As Xubias 84, 15006 A, Coruña, Spain

    Cristina Ruiz-Romero

  3. Red de Investigación en Inflamación y Enfermedades Reumáticas, INIBIC-CHUAC, As Xubias 84, 15006 A, Coruña, Spain

    Francisco J. Blanco

Authors
  1. Beatriz Rocha
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  2. Cristina Ruiz-Romero
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  3. Francisco J. Blanco
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Contributions

All authors researched data for the article, discussed its content, and wrote, reviewed, and edited the manuscript before submission.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Cristina Ruiz-Romero or Francisco J. Blanco.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Rocha, B., Ruiz-Romero, C. & Blanco, F. Mass spectrometry imaging: a novel technology in rheumatology. Nat Rev Rheumatol 13, 52–63 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2016.184

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