Chemical and Topographical Single‐Cell Imaging by Near‐Field Desorption Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Simultaneously acquiring chemical and topographical information within a single cell at nanoscale resolutions is vital to cellular biology, yet it remains a great challenge due to limited lateral resolutions and detection sensitivities. Herein, the development of near‐field desorption mass spectrometry for correlated chemical and topographical imaging is reported, thereby bridging the gap between laser‐based mass spectrometry (MS) methods and multimodal single‐cell imaging. Using this integrated platform, an imaging resolution of 250 nm and 3D topographically reconstructed chemical single‐cell imaging were achieved. This technique offers more in‐depth cellular information than micrometer‐range laser‐based MS imaging methods. Considering the simplicity and compact size of the near‐field device, this technique can be introduced to MALDI‐MS, expanding the multimodal abilities of MS at nanoscale resolutions.

Chemical Analysis of Single Cells and Organelles

“…A recent advance is the development of near-field desorption postionization MS (NDPI-MS) by Tian and co-workers for correlated chemical imaging and 3D topographical reconstruction . The potential of this technique was demonstrated by imaging the distinct subcellular 2D and 3D distribution of proflavine and other compounds in HeLa cells (Figure A) with 350 nm lateral resolution.…”

“…A recent advance is the development of near-field desorption postionization MS (NDPI-MS) by Tian and co-workers for correlated chemical imaging and 3D topographical reconstruction. 124 The potential of this technique was demonstrated by imaging the distinct subcellular 2D and 3D distribution of proflavine and other compounds in HeLa cells ( Figure 7 A) with 350 nm lateral resolution. The feasibility for single-cell measurements using NDPI-MS was rapidly confirmed in a paper by Hang and co-workers, in which the accumulation patterns of proflavine and ethacridine in different subcellular compartments were 3D imaged at the single-cell level.…”

“…2019 , 131 (14), 4589–4594. Copyright 2019 Angewandte Chemie (ref ( 124 )). (B) Nano laser probe-based MSI system.…”

Tandem Mass Spectrometry Imaging Enables High Definition for Mapping Lipids in Tissues

“…The performances of MSI have been improved significantly during past years in the aspects of sensitivity, [7] spatial resolution [8] and speed [9] . Matrix‐assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) is most widely used for MSI, by which sensitive detection of compounds from tissue sections was achieved with high spatial resolution [7, 8b, 10] . Besides conventional in‐vacuum MALDI, atmospheric pressure MALDI (AP‐MALDI) has been attracted more attentions due to its advantages of ease of sample preparation and good compatibility with volatile molecules and different types of mass spectrometers [8b, 11] …”