Mass spectrometry imaging of glycosaminoglycans in biological samples

生物样品中糖胺聚糖的质谱成像

• 批准号: EP/Y002423/1
• 负责人: Andrew Leslie Hook
• 金额: $ 20.89万
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY002423%2F1
• 关键词: Mass; spectrometry; imaging; glycosaminoglycans; biological

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are chains of sugar molecules in our body that are a particularly important part of the space outside of cells. They have a number of roles including controlling how other molecules move about the body and, thus, underpin processes like virus invasion, cancer metasis, growth of tissues and organs, and the transport of nutrients from the blood supply to the rest of the body. To understand these processes researchers need tools to study GAGs, but there is currently limited tools such that reveal only a small aspect of the complex nature of these molecules. This project will use mass spectrometry imaging to simultaneously capture 1000's of different measurements that provide a full structural characterisation of GAGs. This will revolutionise the visualisation of GAGs in the same way increasing the number of colour shades in a photograph from 3 to 1000 reveals the differences and complexities that are not otherwise visible. Consider a field full of different flowers. If the field was only photographed using 3 colour shades many flowers would appear the same that were in fact different colours, and other flowers might appear of a single tone when seen with the 3 colour limit, but with 1000 colours could be seen as having mulitple tones. In the same way, differences in GAG structure currently not visible to researchers because of the limited tools available to assess the differences spatially will be made apparent by developing mass spectrometry imaging tools.To develop an approach applicable to many national and international reseachers the project partners with three international collaborators each with different samples that have varied technical demands. Each sample set will be optimised to demonstrate the utility of the approach. These collaborations enable the analysis approach developed in this project to obtain new insights in the areas of sepsis, morphogenesis (the way that new organs form) and cancer metastasis.

糖胺聚糖（GAG）是我们体内的糖分子链，是细胞外空间的一个特别重要的部分。它们有许多作用，包括控制其他分子如何在体内移动，从而支持病毒入侵，癌症转移，组织和器官生长以及将营养物质从血液供应运输到身体其他部位等过程。为了理解这些过程，研究人员需要研究GAG的工具，但目前的工具有限，只能揭示这些分子复杂性质的一个小方面。该项目将使用质谱成像同时捕获1000个不同的测量结果，提供GAG的完整结构表征。这将彻底改变GAG的可视化，就像将照片中的色调数量从3增加到1000一样，揭示了其他方式不可见的差异和复杂性。想象一片开满不同花朵的田野。如果只使用3种颜色的阴影拍摄该领域，许多花将出现相同的，实际上是不同的颜色，和其他花可能出现单一的色调时，看到的3种颜色的限制，但与1000种颜色可以被视为具有多重色调。以同样的方式，GAG结构的差异目前还看不到的研究人员，因为有限的工具，以评估空间上的差异将通过开发质谱成像tools.To开发一种适用于许多国家和国际reseachers的方法，该项目与三个国际合作伙伴，每个有不同的样品，有不同的技术要求。将对每个样本集进行优化，以证明该方法的实用性。这些合作使该项目中开发的分析方法能够在败血症，形态发生（新器官形成的方式）和癌症转移领域获得新的见解。