Cell analysis on chip-mass spectrometry

Benefit from the development of microfluidic chip and mass spectrometry, chip-mass spectrometry (Chip-MS) has become an ambient platform for cell analysis. Microfluidic chip has been demonstrated as a powerful tool for cell studies, where identical cells or multiple types of cells were co-cultured and constructed to be an organ or tissue. Improvements of interfaces between microchip and mass spectrometry allow rapid detection and analysis of cell metabolites. Moreover, the Chip-MS platform makes monitoring of cell secretion possible. As the environments on microchip are easy to control, various types of cell researches could be carried out, such as cell metabolism, cell migration, cell signaling, proteomics and single-cell analysis. Here, we review the recent fundamental developments of Chip-MS platform for cell analysis. In particular, we discuss the improved integration of Chip-MS platform, as well as its application towards single cell analysis.