Investigation of inter- and intra-tumoral heterogeneity of glioblastoma using TOF-SIMS

Here, we for the first time applied TOF-SIMS (Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry) to study glioma tumors and cells with 800 nm resolution. We also developed a method that allows to simultaneously detect distribution of proteins and metabolites in tumor sections using TOF-SIMS. Our results demonstrate that according to TOF-SIMS data glioma samples can be subdivided into clinically relevant groups and distinguished from the normal brain tissue.