In situ metabolomic analysis of osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) using MALDI MSI.

Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a common orthopedic disease characterized by disability and deformity. To better understand ONFH at molecular level and to explore the possibility of early diagnosis, instead of diagnosis based on macroscopic spatial characteristics, a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI MSI) method was developed for ONFH disease for the first time. The most challenging step for ONFH MSI is to deal with human bone tissues which are much harder than the other biological samples studied by the reported MSI studies. In this work, the MSI sectioning method of hard bone tissues was established using tender acids and a series of test criteria. Small-molecule metabolites, such as lipids and amino acids, were detected in bone sections, realizing the in situ detection of spatial distribution of biometabolites. By comparing the distribution of metabolites from different regions of normal femoral head, ONFH bone tissue (ONBT), and adjacent ONFH bone tissue (ANBT), the whole process of femoral head from normal stage to necrosis was monitored and visualized at molecular level. Moreover, this developed MSI method was used for metabolomics study of ONFH. 72 differential metabolites were identified, suggesting that disturbances in energy metabolism and lipid metabolism affected the normal life activities of osteoblasts and osteoclasts. This study provides new perspectives for future pathological studies of ONFH.

Mass spectrometry imaging for direct visualization of components in plants tissues.

Mass spectrometry is considered the most informative technique for components identification and has been widely adopted in plant sciences. However, the spatial distribution of compounds in the plant, which is vital for the exploration of plant physiological mechanisms, is missed in MS analysis. In recent years, mass spectrometry imaging has brought a great breakthrough in plant analysis because it can determine both the molecular compositions and spatial distributions, which is conducive to understand functions and regulation pathways of specific components in plants. Mass spectrometry imaging analysis of plant tissue is toward high sensitivity, high spatial resolution, and even single-cell analysis. Despite many challenges and technical barriers, such as difficulties of sample pretreatment caused by morphological diversity of plant tissues, obstacles for high spatial resolution imaging, and so on, lots of researches have contributed to remarkable progress, including improvement in tissue preparation, matrix innovation, and ionization mode development. This review focuses on the advances of mass spectrometry imaging analysis of plants in the last 5 years, including commonly used ionization techniques, technical advances, and recent applications of mass spectrometry imaging in plants.

Reversibility of the structure and dewaterability of anaerobic digested sludge.

The reversibility of the structure and dewaterability of broken anaerobic digested sludge (ADS) is important to ensure the efficiency of sludge treatment or management processes. This study investigated the effect of continuous strong shear (CSS) and multipulse shear (MPS) on the zeta potential, size (median size, d50), mass fractal dimension (D(F)), and capillary suction time (CST) of ADS aggregates. Moreover, the self-regrowth (SR) of broken ADS aggregates during slow mixing was also analyzed. The results show that raw ADS with d50 of 56.5 µm was insensitive to CSS-SR or MPS-SR, though the size slightly decreased after the breakage phase. For conditioned ADS with d50 larger than 600 µm, the breakage in small-scale surface erosion changed to large-scale fragmentation as the CSS strength increased. In most cases, after CSS or MPS, the broken ADS had a relatively more compact structure than before and d50 is at least 200 µm. The CST of the broken fragments from optimally dosed ADS increased, whereas that corresponding to overdosed ADS decreased. MPS treatment resulted in larger and more compact broken ADS fragments with a lower CST value than CSS. During the subsequent slow mixing, the broken ADS aggregates did not recover their charge, size, and dewaterability to the initial values before breakage. In addition, less than 15% self-regrowth in terms of percentage of the regrowth factor was observed in broken ADS after CSS at average velocity gradient no less than 1905.6 sec(-1).