Imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) has been rarely used to examine specimens of human brain tumours. In the current study, high quality brain tumour samples were selected by tissue observation. Further, IMS analysis was combined with a new hierarchical cluster analysis (IMS-HCA) and region of interest analysis (IMS-ROI). IMS-HCA was successful in creating groups consisting of similar signal distribution images of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and related multiple proteins in primary brain tumours. This clustering data suggested the relation of GFAP and these identified proteins in the brain tumorigenesis. Also, high levels of histone proteins, haemoglobin subunit α, tubulins, and GFAP were identified in a metastatic brain tumour using IMS-ROI. Our results show that IMS-HCA and IMS-ROI are promising techniques for identifying biomarkers using brain tumour samples.

成像质谱（IMS）很少用于检查人脑肿瘤标本。在当前的研究中，通过组织观察选择了高质量的脑肿瘤样品。此外，IMS分析与新的层次聚类分析（IMS-HCA）和关注区域分析（IMS-ROI）相结合。IMS-HCA成功地创建了由原发性脑肿瘤中神经胶质原纤维酸性蛋白（GFAP）和相关的多种蛋白的相似信号分布图像组成的组。这些聚类数据表明了GFAP和这些鉴定出的蛋白质在脑肿瘤发生中的关系。同样，使用IMS-ROI在转移性脑肿瘤中鉴定出高水平的组蛋白，血红蛋白亚基，微管蛋白和GFAP。