Mass spectrometry is considered the most informative technique for components identification and has been widely adopted in plant sciences. However, the spatial distribution of compounds in the plant, which is vital for the exploration of plant physiological mechanisms, is missed in MS analysis. In recent years, mass spectrometry imaging has brought a great breakthrough in plant analysis because it can determine both the molecular compositions and spatial distributions, which is conducive to understand functions and regulation pathways of specific components in plants. Mass spectrometry imaging analysis of plant tissue is toward high sensitivity, high spatial resolution, and even single-cell analysis. Despite many challenges and technical barriers, such as difficulties of sample pretreatment caused by morphological diversity of plant tissues, obstacles for high spatial resolution imaging, and so on, lots of researches have contributed to remarkable progress, including improvement in tissue preparation, matrix innovation, and ionization mode development. This review focuses on the advances of mass spectrometry imaging analysis of plants in the last 5 years, including commonly used ionization techniques, technical advances, and recent applications of mass spectrometry imaging in plants.

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A lack of control over the relative orientation of donor and acceptor moieties in solid films is the main reason for poor electroluminescence efficiency found in most D-σ-A patterns. In this study, adamantane was introduced as the linker for the construction of a D-σ-A system since its rigid but non-conjugated nature. For a systematic study, the same donor (9,9-dimethyl-10-phenyl-9,10-dihydroacridine, DMTPA) and acceptor (2,4,6-triphenyl-1,3,5-triazine, TPZ) block were attached at different sites of the adamantine molecule, forming three kinds of configuration including face-to-face (FF), head-to-tail (HT), and chair (CH) style. DFT/TD-DFT simulation was carried out to investigate the electronic structures, optical characteristics, and charge transfer (ICT) properties of these three designed molecules. Attributed to a non-conjugated adamantane linker, the conjugation between donor and acceptor was disrupted for either of these molecules, resulting in high triplet energy of 2.79, 2.99, and 3.10 eV, respectively. Among them, the face-to-face style molecule presents the smallest ΔEST and greatest charge transfer excitation from donor to acceptor, suggesting an excellent potential for thermal activated delayed fluorescence (TADF). Face-to-face type molecule is a good option for a high-performance blue organic light-emitting diode (OLED) host material based on these results. Our investigation may open a door for designing new host molecule with other donor and acceptor groups to further enhance the efficiency and longevity of OLEDs.

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