Copper adhesive tape attached to the reverse side of a non-conductive glass slide to achieve protein MALDI-imaging in FFPE-tissue sections.

Herein, copper adhesive tape attached to the reverse side of a glass slide was developed as a new method to achieve protein in situ detection and imaging in a formalin fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue section on a non-conductive glass slide by MALDI-MSI. The use of this new method led to 223 protein ions being imaged from a rat brain FFPE-tissue section on a non-conductive glass slide by MALDI-MS, compared to only 145 and 163 protein ions detected on an ITO glass slide and an AnchorChip target plate, respectively. This new method has great potential to become standard practice for protein MALDI-imaging in FFPE-tissue sections on non-conductive glass slides.