High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning (HRMAS) NMR Methods in Metabolomics.

Abstract

High-resolution magic angle spinning (HRMAS) NMR spectroscopy enables the evaluation of metabolite profiles of intact tissue with high spectral resolution. The ability to preserve the tissue after analysis permits subsequent histopathological examination and enables the analyses of correlations between tissue metabolites and pathologies, thus making HRMAS NMR spectroscopy a powerful tool in the metabolomics field. Improved methods for the elimination of spinning sidebands that appear at low spinning rates preserve the integrity of tissue structures better and allow measurement of delicate tissues, such as clinical biopsy core samples. In the metabolomics field, HRMAS NMR has been established as a valuable tool for both untargeted and targeted metabolite profiling. In this chapter, we present protocols to perform HRMAS NMR spectroscopy experiments, including sample preparation, acquisition procedures, measurement parameters, histopathological examination techniques, spectral processing, and metabolite quantification and statistical analyses.