Capturing localized protein and metabolic information from a single tissue section
Revealing how proteins and end products of biological activity (metabolites) change within specific tissue functional units during development or in response to environmental factors is beneficial for understanding localized biological processes and the biological roles of molecules.
Scientists have developed a new method to analyze the proteins and metabolites within a single tissue section, addressing the challenge of capturing both molecular types from the same tissue. Traditional techniques require multiple tissue sections due to the differences in chemical structure, reactivity, and mass between proteins and metabolites.
This new approach, called metabolome-informed proteome imaging from the same tissue section (MIPI-STS), uses spatial metabolomics and proteomics together on a single tissue section. Researchers from the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory created this workflow, and their findings were published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
The MIPI-STS workflow was tested on poplar root tissue and showed comparable results to analyzing the modalities separately in optimal settings. Notably, this method did not result in any loss of protein content or delocalization of metabolites from their original locations. By employing the same tissue section for both spatial metabolomics and spatial proteomics, researchers can ensure accurate molecular correlation within specific cells or functional zones.
While this workflow was developed using plant root tissue sections, it can be applied to other environmental and biological specimens to study molecular processes occurring in distinct regions of tissues.
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