Single-cell analysis by ambient mass spectrometry

Analysis of chemicals at single-cell level plays an important role in the investigation of cell genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, and it also provides significant insight in life science, biological, medicinal, pharmacological, pathological, and toxicological studies. As a newly developed technique, ambient mass spectrometry has been proven to be a powerful tool for rapid, direct, and straightforward analysis of cellular and subcellular ingredients and metabolites under ambient and open-air conditions. In this review article, we discuss the fields of ambient mass spectrometry for analysis of single cells that have been published to date. Different strategies for application of various ambient ionization techniques to achieve single-cell mass spectrometric analysis are categorized and commented, and the typical analyses and applications are summarized and discussed.