Diagnostic method of mass spectrometry for detecting lymph node metastasis of non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Histopathology by pathologists is essential in the diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, auxiliary diagnostic procedures for malignant tumor have continued to evolve. Despite the poor prognosis of patients with NSCLC, the application of the latest procedures and technologies to the field of lung cancer has lagged. Mass spectrometry was used to detect trace amounts of peptides in human tissue with high accuracy. The aim of this study was to establish a method for diagnostic mass spectrometry to identify lymph node metastasis by detecting cytokeratin (CK)19, a useful biomarker in lung cancer. METHODS: We collected 81 lymph nodes with positive expression of CK19 in patients who underwent radical surgical resection in the Department of Thoracic Surgery at Iwate Medical University between May 2020 and December 2022. An X500R instrument was used for sample analysis. A positive result for lymph node metastasis as the detection at least two product ions (FGPGVAFR and ILGATIENSR) from CK19 was defined. RESULTS: Our study indicated a high diagnostic efficiency for mass spectrometry, with 87.5% sensitivity and 91.2% specificity. The mutual concordance of mass spectrometry methods and histopathological diagnosis was 90.1%. CONCLUSIONS: Mass spectrometry offers high diagnostic accuracy and can be clinically applied to auxiliary diagnostic procedures for lymph node metastasis from NSCLC.

Development of a comprehensive analytical method for phosphate metabolites in plants by ion chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry.

This paper describes the development of a practical method for the analysis of phosphorus compounds with a focus on sugar phosphates from the model higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana by ion chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (IC-ESI-MS-MS). After the analytical separation, the potassium hydroxide eluent was converted to water with an anion suppressor allowing the effluent from the IC to be connected to the mass spectrometer directly. In the optimized method, 17 phosphorous compounds (adenosine diphosphate (ADP), fructose 1,6-bisphosphate, fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, fructose 6-phosphate, galactose 1-phosphate, glucose 1-phosphate, glucose 1,6-bisphosphate, glucose 6-phosphate, mannose 6-phosphate, phosphoenol pyrvate, 3-phosphoglyceric acid, ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate, ribulose 5-phosphate, ribose 5-phosphate, sucrose 6-phosophate and uridine 5'-diphosphate-glucose (UDPG)) were determined. The linearity of response for these phosphorous compounds over the concentration range of 0 and 10 microM was better than 0.9993 in all cases. The minimum detection limit was between 0.01 and 2.50 microM for a 25 microL injection, and recovery rates for standard addition to the sample were within the range from 93% to 110%.