DIRECT TISSUE AND CELL ANALYSIS OF TULIP BULBS BY COMBINING PRESSURE PROBE AND UV-MALDI-MS

Soluble sugars play a central role in metabolism and water relations, their analysis can provide important information about biochemistry of growth, flowering and exposure of plants to different stresses. Here we report a successful application of UV-MALDI-MS for direct profiling of soluble sugars on the surface of tulip bulb tissue and also their detection in microsamples sucked from single cells of tulip bulbs by using Pressure Probe. Soluble neutral carbohydrates could be directly desorbed/ ionized by deposition of UV-MALDI matrix on the dried tissue. Despite the tiny volume of the single cell microsample sucked (picoliter) the high sensitivity of UV-MALDI-MS allowed the detection of soluble sugars after its deposition on air-dried layers of different matrixes. Results obtained from intact tissue and single cell level experiments were comparable; similar sugars signals could be detected and also their relative signal intensity were similar in both experiments.