Mass Spectrometry Imaging of Kidney Tissue Sections of Rat Subjected to Unilateral Ureteral Obstruction

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) poses a serious threat to the quality of human life and health with an increasing incidence worldwide. Renal fibrosis is closely related to CKD and regarded as the final common pathophysiological pathway in most cases of end-stage renal diseases. Elucidating the mechanisms underlying renal fibrosis and developing novel therapeutic strategies are of great importance. Herein, matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI MSI) based on 1, 5-diaminonaphthalene hydrochloride was applied to the rat model of unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) to investigate metabolic changes during renal fibrosis. Among identified endogenous compounds, twenty-one metabolites involved in metabolic networks such as glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, ATP metabolism, fatty acids metabolism, antioxidants, and metal ions underwent relatively obvious changes after 1 and 3 weeks of UUO. Unique distribution of the metabolites was obtained, and metabolic changes of kidneys during renal fibrosis were investigated simultaneously for the first time. These findings once again highlighted the promising potential of the organic salt matrix for application in small molecule in situ MSI and in the field of biomedical research.