Uppsala's MSI environment continues to expand
Just a minute… Per Andrén, Professor of Mass Spectrometry Imaging, that with the installation of a new FTICR instrument heads of one of the world's leading facilities for Mass Spectrometry Imaging.
(Image removed) Per Andrén, Professor of Mass Spectrometry Imaging
What's going on at Lab Per Andrén?
“We have just installed a new mass spectrometer of the model solariX MALDI FTICR 7T, an extremely powerful instrument for Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI). It generates ultrahigh mass resolution, a necessary property to image the complex environment of a biological tissue section. Together with the first FTICR instrument that we acquired in 2018 and our other instruments, we now have one of the world's leading laboratories in our field.”
(Image removed) solariX MALDI FTICR 7T
What services do you provide?
“With MSI technology, we can determine the distribution of molecules - especially metabolites, neurotransmitters, lipids, peptides, small proteins and drugs - in thin sections of biological tissue, for example in different organs. We collaborate with preclinical and clinical researchers, but we also perform services to the pharmaceutical industry in drug development projects. The fact that our team also has the interdisciplinary competence to design, execute, compile and evaluate entire projects makes us an internationally attractive resource. Currently, there is a queue to our facility, but with this new instrument we will increase our capacity significantly.”
What is required to engage you?
“An interesting project, granted funding and potential for high impact publications. We always start with a planning meeting and examine whether the substance or drug of interest is compatible with our technology. Then we test ionization properties on tissue accompanied by a pilot project, and if everything looks good, we move to full scale. We are currently involved in about forty studies, mainly in Sweden, but we also have several international clients.”
Why did you choose Uppsala for your facility?
“After my postdoc at MSI pioneer Richard Caprioli's laboratory in Houston, USA, I divided my time between GE Healthcare and Uppsala University until 2010. In 2003, I received funding to build an MSI facility at BMC. Over the years, the Swedish Research Council, SSF, the Wallenberg Foundation and several other organisations have funded us, and today we have state-of-the-art equipment to offer the latest technology and methods.”
What are your plans for the near future?
“We continuously develop new methods for visualizing molecules that are difficult to image. In collaboration with Luke Odell, we recently presented new chemical tools in Nature Methods to simultaneously image complete neurotransmitter systems in different regions of the brain. The method provides a better overall picture of how the brain's chemical messengers interact in neurological processes and disease states. We also have several collaborations that we strongly believe in, for example with Per Svenningsson, neurologist at KI, with ENABLE - the EU funded project for the development of new antibiotics - and of course with researchers at our own faculty. In addition, we conduct our own research focusing on Parkinson's disease and L-Dopa-induced dyskinesias, as well as providing new tools for studying drugs and their effects.”
FACTS MASS SPECTROMETRY IMAGING (MSI)
- Enables analysis and visualisation of endogenous metabolites, neurotransmitters, lipids, peptides and small proteins as well as drugs and their metabolites, in thin biological tissue sections with high molecular specificity.
- Molecular images are created by ionizing molecules and collecting mass spectra from each position (pixels) on a tissue surface at a selected lateral resolution. Thousands of ions can be detected in each pixel.
- The distribution of individual molecules on the surface of the tissue section is then extracted and a molecule-specific image is created. The image can be correlated with the original histological image or images produced with other types of imaging methods from the same or consecutive tissue sections.
More information
- Visit online Research in Medical Mass Spectrometry at Uppsala University
- Also read Mass spectrometry imaging identifies abnormally elevated brain L-DOPA levels and extrastriatal monoaminergic dysregulation in L-DOPA–induced dyskinesia
- Also read Comprehensive mapping of neurotransmitter networks by MALDI–MS imaging
- Also read New findings on adverse effects of L-Dopa therapy of Parkinson's disease
CONTACT
(Image removed) Per Andrén, Professor of Mass Spectrometry Imaging
Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences
per.andren@farmbio.uu.se, 070-1679334
(Image removed) Anna Nilsson
Lab manager
anna.nilsson@farmbio.uu.se
(Image removed) Reza Shariatgorji
Lab manager
reza.shariatgorji@farmbio.uu.se
text: Magnus Alsne, photo: Lab Per Andrén