Objectives: Cytology and histology are 2 indispensable diagnostic tools for cancer diagnosis, which are rapidly increasing in importance with aging populations. We applied mass spectrometry (MS) as a rapid approach for swiftly acquiring nonmorphological information of interested cells. Conventional MS, which primarily rely on promoting ionization by pre-applying a matrix to cells, has the drawback of time-consuming both on data acquisition and analysis. As an emerging method, probe electrospray ionization-MS (PESI-MS) with a dedicated probe is capable to pierce sample and measure specimen in small amounts, either liquid or solid, without the requirement for sample pretreatment. Furthermore, PESI-MS is timesaving compared to the conventional MS. Herein, we investigated the capability of PESI-MS to characterize the cell types derived from the respiratory tract of human tissues. Study Design: PESI-MS analyses with DPiMS-2020 were performed on various type of cultured cells including 5 lung squamous cell carcinomas, 5 lung adenocarcinomas, 5 small-cell carcinomas, 4 malignant mesotheliomas, and 2 normal controls. Results: Several characteristic peaks were detected at around m/z 200 and 800 that were common in all samples. As expected, partial least squares-discriminant analysis of PESI-MS data distinguished the cancer cell types from normal control cells. Moreover, distinct clusters divided squamous cell carcinoma from adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: PESI-MS presented a promising potential as a novel diagnostic modality for swiftly acquiring specific cytological information.
Acta Cytologica

中文翻译：

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将探针电喷雾电离质谱法应用于细胞学诊断：使用培养的肺癌细胞进行的初步研究

目标：细胞学和组织学是癌症诊断不可或缺的两种诊断工具，随着人口老龄化，它们的重要性正在迅速增加。我们应用质谱 (MS) 作为快速获取感兴趣细胞的非形态信息的快速方法。传统的 MS 主要依赖于通过将基质预先应用于细胞来促进电离，其缺点是数据采集和分析都耗时。作为一种新兴方法，带有专用探针的探针电喷雾电离-MS (PESI-MS) 能够刺穿样品并测量少量液体或固体样品，而无需样品预处理。此外，与传统 MS 相比，PESI-MS 更省时。在此处，研究设计：使用 DPiMS-2020 对各种类型的培养细胞进行了 PESI-MS 分析，包括 5 个肺鳞状细胞癌、5 个肺腺癌、5 个小细胞癌、4 个恶性间皮瘤和 2 个正常对照。结果：在 m/z 200 和 800 附近检测到几个特征峰，这些峰在所有样品中都很常见。正如预期的那样，PESI-MS 数据的偏最小二乘判别分析将癌细胞类型与正常对照细胞区分开来。此外，不同的簇将鳞状细胞癌与腺癌分开。结论： PESI-MS 作为一种快速获取特定细胞学信息的新型诊断方式具有广阔的前景。
细胞学学报