Mapping Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity in Multifocal Breast Tumor Progression by Noninvasive Ultrasound Elastography-Guided Mass Spectrometry Imaging Strategy

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity of tumors provides an escape mechanism for breast cancer cells, which can obstruct the investigation of tumor progression. While molecular profiling obtained from mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is rich in biochemical information, it lacks the capacity for in vivo analysis. Ultrasound diagnosis has a high diagnostic accuracy but low chemical specificity. Here, we describe a noninvasive ultrasound elastography (UE)-guided MSI strategy (UEg-MSI) that integrates physical and biochemical characteristics of tumors acquired from both in vivo and in vitro imaging. Using UEg-MSI, both elasticity histopathology metabolism "fingerprints" and reciprocal crosstalk are revealed, indicating the intact, multifocal spatiotemporal heterogeneity of spontaneous tumorigenesis of the breast from early, middle, and late stages. Our results demonstrate a gradual increase in malignant degree of primary focus in cervical and thoracic mammary glands. This progression is characterized by increased stiffness according to elasticity scores, histopathological changes from hyperplasia to increased nests of neoplastic cells and necrotic areas, and regional metabolic heterogeneity and reprogramming at the spatiotemporal level. De novo fatty acid (FA) synthesis focused on independent (such as ω-9 FAs) and dependent (such as ω-6 FAs) dietary FA intake in the core cancerous nest areas in the middle and late stages of tumor or in the peripheral microareas in the early stage of the tumor. SM-Cer signaling pathway and GPs biosynthesis and degradation, as well as glycerophosphoinositol intensity, changed in multiple characteristic microareas. The UEg-MSI strategy holds the potential to expand MSI applications and enhance ultrasound-mediated cancer diagnosis. It offers new insight into early cancer discovery and the occurrence of metastasis.