MALDI profiling and applications in medicine

Abstract

Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI) mass spectrometry allows for the rapid profi ling of different biomolecular species from both biofl uids and tissues. Whilst originally focussed upon the analysis of intact proteins and peptides, MALDI mass spectrometry has found further applications in lipidomic analysis, genotyping, micro-organism identifi cation, biomarker discovery and metabolomics. The combining of multiple profi les data from differing locations across a sample, furthermore, allows for spatial distribution of biomolecules to be established utilising imaging MALDI analysis. This chapter discusses the MALDI process, its usual applications in the fi eld of protein identifi cation via peptide mass fi ngerprinting before focusing upon advances in the application of the profi ling potential of MALDI mass spectrometry and its various applications in biomedicine.