Secondary ion mass spectrometry

In cancer cells, metabolic alternations of lipids, converging to lipid synthesis and de novo lipogenesis take place, which results in a characteristic increase in its lipid composition. Recent research findings confirm the existence of some characteristic phospholipids in cancer tissues whose concentrations vary in comparison to healthy cells. Mass spectroscopy imaging (MSI) has emerged as one of the novel powerful tools for the diagnosis of cancer-based on lipidomic analysis profiling. MSI helps in identifying the chemical information, metabolic profiles of the tissue sample, their spatial distribution and identification of markers relevant to a cancer diagnosis in earlier stages. It is a sensitive technique that can offer molecular details in the cellular level viz identification of pituitary tumors, meningiomas, and gliomas based on the signals derived from the phospholipids present in the tissues. Further, in the areas of cancer diagnosis, mass spectrometric imaging also plays a key role in posttranslational protein modifications investigation. MSI helps in unraveling phosphor proteome roles in the cell signaling in cancer as well as other diseases. It also provides high sensitivity and specificity in cancer clinical research by identifying different isoenzymes involved in cancer. By identification of protein biomarkers, MSI can help in identifying the patients subjected to risk of recurrent, relapse or metastatic cancers. This review expounds the instrumentation of MSI and its approach for the identification, diagnosis, and in distinguishing carcinoma based on their lipidomic and protein profiling while highlighting its advantages over the existing techniques, allied instrumentation details along with discussions on the mass spectral profiles of the cancerous tissues and their use in distinguishing cancerous tissues from normal tissues.