Method and apparatus for processing mass analysis data

Abstract

The present invention aims at providing a method and apparatus for presenting, based on an enormous amount of data collected by an imaging mass analysis, information which is significant for understanding the tissue structure and other information of a biological sample and which is intuitively easy to understand to analysis operator. For each pixelon a sample, the mass-to-charge ratio m/z (i) corresponding to the maximum intensity MI(i) in the mass spectrum is extracted, and all the pixels are grouped into clusters in accordance with their m/z (i). One cluster corresponds to one substance. Then, the largest maximum intensity MI(i) among the maximum intensities of the pixels included in a cluster is extracted as the representative maximum intensity MI(cj) for each cluster, and these representative maximum intensities MI(cj) are displayed with cluster number cj. When an operator specifies one or more clusters to be displayed by reference to these MI(cj), different colors respectively are assigned to the specified clusters, and a cluster image in which the pixels included in each cluster are colored is created and displayed. On the cluster image, the spatial distributions of a plurality of substances are shown in different colors. Simultaneously, an integrated mass spectrum of all the pixels is displayed, in which the peaks corresponding to the selected clusters are colored in the same color as in the cluster image.