MALDI imaging and profiling mass spectrometry of proteins typically leads to the detection of a large number of peptides and small proteins but is much less successful for larger proteins: most ion signals correspond to proteins of m/z Ïœ 25,000. This is a severe limitation as many proteins, including cytokines, growth factors, enzymes, and receptors have molecular weights exceeding 25 kDa. The detector technology typically used for protein imaging, a microchannel plate, is not well suited to the detection of high m/z ions and is prone to detector saturation when analyzing complex mixtures. Here we report increased sensitivity for higher mass proteins by using the CovalX high mass HM1 detector (Zurich, Switzerland), which has been specifically designed for the detection of high mass ions and which is much less prone to detector saturation. The results demonstrate that a range of different sample preparation strategies enable higher mass proteins to be analyzed if the detector technology maintains high detection efficiency throughout the mass range. The detector enables proteins up to 70 kDa to be imaged, and proteins up to 110 kDa to be detected, directly from tissue, and indicates new directions by which the mass range amenable to MALDI imaging MS and MALDI profiling MS may be extended. (J Am Soc Mass Spectrom 2010, 21, 1922-1929) © 2010 American Society for Mass Spectrometry S ince its inception Ïł10 y ago, MALDI imaging mass spectrometry (imaging MS) has developed into a powerful and versatile tool for biomedical research [1,2]. It is now routinely used for analyzing peptides and small proteins up to 25 kDa [3-6], administered drugs and their metabolites [7], and recently major improvements have been reported for lipids [8]. Despite this success, proteins exceeding 25 kDa are not routinely detected. Proteins larger than 25 kDa include many proteins with important biological activities, such as most cytokines, growth factors, enzymes, receptors, proproteins, and neuropeptide precursors. Increasing the mass range of proteins amenable to MALDI imaging MS might enable these biologically crucial proteins to be included in current applications, e.g., biomarker discovery.The most common technique currently used to access larger proteins in MALDI imaging MS analyses is based on proteolytic digestion of the tissue's proteins followed by MALDI imaging MS of their tryptic peptides. Note on-tissue digestion has the additional advantage that it can be applied to formalin fixed tissues as proteolytic peptides can be generated that are not bound within the cross-linked protein matrix. For example, Djidja et al. used on-tissue digestion to determine that the 78 kDa protein GRP78 may be a new candidate protein biomarker of pancreatic adenocarcinoma [9]. In principal, this 'bottom-up' strategy could enable proteins of any mass to be detected. In practice the large increase in complexity associated with proteolysing the entire tissue's protein content will cause many tryptic peptides to have identical nominal mass [1], thus under...