Visually identifying the molecular changes in single cells is of great importance for unraveling fundamental cellular functions as well as disease mechanisms. Herein, we demonstrated a mass spectro-microtomography with an optimal voxel resolution of ∼300 × 300 × 25 nm3, which enables three-dimensional tomography of chemical substances in single cells. This mass imaging method allows for the distinguishment of abundant endogenous and exogenous molecules in subcellular structures. Combined with statistical analysis, we demonstrated this method for spatial metabolomics analysis of drug distribution and subsequent molecular damages caused by intracellular drug action. More interestingly, thanks to the nanoprecision ablation depth (∼12 nm), we realized metabolomics profiling of cell membrane without the interference of cytoplasm and improved the distinction of cancer cells from normal cells. Our current method holds great potential to be a powerful tool for spatially resolved single-cell metabolomics analysis of chemical components during complex biological processes.
Keywords: cell membrane; in-depth anatomical profiling; mass spectro-microtomography; nanometer resolution imaging; single cell.