Imaging mass spectrometry identifies prognostic ganglioside species in rodent intracranial transplants of glioma and medulloblastoma

Abstract

Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-MSI) allows us to investigate the distribution of lipid molecules within tissues. We used MALDI-MSI to identify prognostic gangliosides in tissue sections of rat intracranial allografts of rat glioma and mouse intracranial xenografts of human medulloblastoma. In the healthy adult rodent brain, GM1 and GD1 were the main types of glycolipids. Both gangliosides were absent in both intracranial transplants. The ganglioside GM3 was not present in the healthy adult brain but was highly expressed in rat glioma allografts. In combination with tandem mass spectrometry GM3 (d18:1/C24:0) was identified as the most abundant ganglioside species in the glioma allotransplant. By contrast, mouse xenografts of human medulloblastoma were characterized by prominent expression of the ganglioside GM2 (d18:0/C18:0). Together, these data demonstrate that tissue-based MALDI-MSI of gangliosides is able to discriminate between different brain tumors and may be a useful clinical tool for their classification and grading.

Rapid determination of medulloblastoma subgroup affiliation with mass spectrometry using a handheld picosecond infrared laser desorption probe

“…The small lipid and metabolite profiles for MB reported here in this orthogonal study will add to the existing knowledge of protein and ganglioside biomarkers identified by other mass spectrometry methods including LC-MS/MS and Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-MS). 32 , 33 …”

Identification of Therapeutic Targets for Medulloblastoma by Tissue-Specific Genome-Scale Metabolic Model

“…Another essential gene found by the MB model was the B4GALNT1 gene that controls GM2, GD2, and GT2 syntheses using GM3, GD3, and GT3 gangliosides, respectively [ 41 ]. The most and the second most abundant ganglioside in the DAOY and TE-671 MB cell lines, respectively, is the GM2 ganglioside, which induces tumor proliferation [ 37 , 41 , 42 ]. The GD2 level was also found to be notably higher in MB relative to the healthy brain [ 43 ].…”

Glycosphingolipids are mediators of cancer plasticity through independent signaling pathways

“…We found a large spectrum of GSL positivity, with globosides being elevated in the tissue samples compared with the ascites (Figures 1C, S2A, and S2B), supporting our hypothesis that globosides are abundant in epithelial-like OC. To spatially determine total GSL expression in human OC tissue, we utilized negative-mode MALDI-mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) (Colsch and Woods, 2010;Ermini et al, 2017). The powerful feature of MALDI-MSI is non-targeted registration of analytes in a spatially resolved manner to assign and distinguish various GSLs.…”