Whole Reproductive System Non-Negative Matrix Factorization Mass Spectrometry Imaging of an Early-Stage Ovarian Cancer Mouse Model

High-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) is the most common and deadliest form of ovarian cancer. Yet it is largely asymptomatic in its initial stages. Studying the origin and early progression of this disease is thus critical in identifying markers for early detection and screening purposes. Tissue-based mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) can be employed as an unbiased way of examining localized metabolic changes between healthy and cancerous tissue directly, at the onset of disease. In this study, we describe MSI results from Dicer-Pten double-knockout (DKO) mice, a mouse model faithfully reproducing the clinical nature of human HGSC. By using non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) for the unsupervised analysis of desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) datasets, tissue regions are segregated based on spectral components in an unbiased manner, with alterations related to HGSC highlighted. Results obtained by combining NMF with DESI-MSI revealed several metabolic species elevated in the tumor tissue and/or surrounding blood-filled cyst including ceramides, sphingomyelins, bilirubin, cholesterol sulfate, and various lysophospholipids. Multiple metabolites identified within the imaging study were also detected at altered levels within serum in a previous metabolomic study of the same mouse model. As an example workflow, features identified in this study were used to build an oPLS-DA model capable of discriminating between DKO mice with early-stage tumors and controls with up to 88% accuracy.