Obtaining information on protein content while keeping their localization on tissue or organ is of importance in different domains to understand pathophysiological processes. There is increasing interest in studying the microenvironment and heterogeneity of tumors, which currently is difficult with existing proteomics techniques. The advent of new techniques, like MALDI Mass Spectrometry Imaging, made a significant progress in the last decade but is characterized by a number of inherent drawbacks. One of these is the limited identification of proteins. New alternative approaches such as spatially-resolved liquid microextraction have recently been proposed to overcome this limitation. In this chapter, we describe strategies using liquid microjunction to perform extraction of previously digested peptides or of intact proteins from tissue section in a localized manner.
Keywords: LESA; Liquid microjunction; MALDI imaging; Microproteomics; Protein microextraction; Surface sampling.