MALDI-MS imaging of proteins and peptides in tissues provides pictures of molecular distributions in tissues that can be examined together with optical images from tissue stained with dyes used in traditional histology for an approach that may be termed "molecular histology". A complete solution for MALDI matrix application to the tissue, imaging data acquisition, and statistical and other software tools for producing useful images from the data will be presented. The use of molecular histology for the classification of tissue health state, and for biomarker discovery will be discussed. Small molecule imaging provides access to images of lipids, metabolites and other endogenous small molecules that may also serve as biomarkers for disease states, and is in many ways complementary to peptide and protein imaging. Another area of great interest in small molecule imaging is xenobiotic imaging. Direct imaging of drugs in tissues can demonstrate that the drug has reached the targeted regions of the tissue. Imaging of drug metabolites can yield a direct measurement of the DMPK properties of the drug directly in the tissue. Solutions for small molecule and drug imaging in tissues will be discussed, including direct imaging of drugs in tissues from animals dosed at therapeutic levels using FTMS.
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