Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS): basics and clinical applications

Background: Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS) has been used for more than 30 years. Compared with other analytical techniques, it offers ease of use, high throughput, robustness, cost-effectiveness, rapid analysis and sensitivity. As advan-tages, current clinical techniques (e.g. immunoassays) are unable to directly measure the biomarker; rather, they measure secondary signals. MALDI-MS has been exten-sively researched for clinical applications, and it is set for a breakthrough as a routine tool for clinical diagnostics.Content: This review reports on the principles of MALDI-MS and discusses current clinical applications and the future clinical prospects for MALDI-MS. Furthermore, the review assesses the limitations currently experienced in clinical assays, the advantages and the impact of MALDI-MS to transform clinical laboratories.Summary: MALDI-MS is widely used in clinical microbiol-ogy for the screening of microbial isolates; however, there is scope to apply MALDI-MS in the diagnosis, prognosis, therapeutic drug monitoring and biopsy imaging in many diseases.Outlook: There is considerable potential for MALDI-MS in clinic as a tool for screening, profiling and imaging because of its high sensitivity and specificity over alterna-tive techniques.