Monitoring metabolic responses to chemotherapy in single cells and tumors using nanostructure-initiator mass spectrometry (NIMS) imaging

Abstract

NIMS is suitable for monitoring drug exposure and metabolite biotransformation with essentially single cell resolution, and provides new spatial and functional dimensions to studies of cancer metabolism without the need for radiotracers or tissue extraction. These findings should prove useful for in vitro and pre-clinical studies of cancer metabolism, and aid the optimization of metabolism-based cancer therapies and diagnostics.