Abstract #0178

Mining Lipid Signatures in a Breast Tumor Model by Combining Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging and Mass Spectrometric Imaging

Lu Jiang¹, Kamila Chughtai², Tiffany Greenwood¹, Gert Eijkel², Ron Heeren², Kristine Glunde¹

¹JHU ICMIC Program, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins Medical Institute , Baltimore, MD, United States; ²FOM-Institute AMOLF, Netherlands

The intensity of the total choline (tCho) signal in magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) of tumors is spatially heterogeneous. in vivo H1 MRSI with the spectral resolution to resolve the components of the tCho signal and its membrane precursors is currently unavailable. Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) of histologic tumor sections is able to detect thousands of molecules from the tissue surface. We have investigated the correlations between tCho, lipid metabolites, and membrane phospholipids in a human breast cancer model by combining in vivo MRSI with ex vivo MSI, which identified specific membrane phosphatidylcholine species that are decreased in high tCho regions.