Recent Advances In Single Cell Analysis Methods Based On Mass Spectrometry

The heterogeneity among individual cells is of great importance 14 organisms to achieve different biological functions. Investigations deep into the mechanism of some biological phenomena rely on the analysis of the chemical compositions of single cells. Unfortunately, the successful analysis of single cells is technically difficult to achieve due to the complex composition of single cells , the very limited amount of materials in single cells and the huge difference among different metabolites in their concentrations. Mass spectrometry (MS) has been widely used in single cell analysis in recent years due to its high sensitivity , high specificity and capability for structure identification. Methods based on MS have been developed for the analysis of different metabolites in single cells. From the perspective of ionization techniques , there are mainly three single cell analysis methods , including nano-electrospray ionization (Nano-ESI) based method , laser desorption ionization (LDI) based method and secondary ion MS (SIMS) based method. This review summarizes the up-to-date developments of these methods and their future trends.