Elena Acquadro, Claudia Cabella, Simona Ghiani, Luigi Miragoli, Enrico M. Bucci, Davide Corpillo
Anal. Chem. 2009, 81 (7), 2779–2784
The present paper describes the detection of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-IMS). The contrast agent was analyzed in both frozen and paraformaldehyde-fixed mouse livers explanted after its in vivo administration, and its identity was confirmed by fragmentation experiments. Moreover, a semiquantitative analysis was performed, evaluating its content in livers from mice sacrificed at different postadministration times. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first description of a MALDI-IMS analysis of MRI contrast agents and the first time that results obtained by MALDI-IMS are validated by both an in vivo (MRI) and an ex vivo (inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, ICP-AES) technique. Results shown in the present paper demonstrate the possibility of using MALDI-IMS for drug biodistribution analysis. Obviously, this application is particularly interesting in the case of unlabeled compounds, which cannot be detected by any of the other imaging techniques.
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