High Resolution Mass Spectroscopy for Single Cell Analysis
Journal Title: Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) - Year 2019, Vol 18, Issue 4
Abstract
Mass spectroscopy is an important analytical tool that has found pervasive use in numerous fields. This review tries to look at the recent advances in high resolution mass spectroscopy for single cell analysis covering the developments that contribute to improvement of the resolution of mass spectroscopy. These advances have been able to foment further challenges which require further research. This paper attempts to highlight these challenges and alludes to possible solutions for these challenges.The importance of single cell analysis cannot be overstated as it is an analysis of a fundamental unit of biology which holds transcribed in itself the architectural print of genome and which is the biological manifestation of it. Single cell mass spectroscopy is a new and an increasingly important field of study with increasingly numerous applications. These applications of single cell mass spectrometry include, but are not restricted to Transcriptomics [1,2], Metabolomics [3], and Proteomics [4,5]. Single cell mass spectroscopy enables mapping of distribution of biomolecules at the subcellular resolution. The single cell analysis has been so instrumental in bringing about promising breakthroughs. It furnishes us with uniquely important insights into the variability of diseases and their treatments, highlighting the differences, and more importantly the causes of those differences [6]. The achievements of single cell analysis include analysis of mutations leading to brain cancer [7,8], understanding neuropathic pains [9], the profiles of transcription from the embryo of the hippocampus of the mouse and its neocortical neurons [10,11]. Chemical characterization of the single cell is an area of immense importance. Researchers over the years have developed various methods for such an analysis. Mass spectrometry has come to become a standard operational procedure for most of these technique from metabolomics to proteomics to genomics. Given the prevalent importance of the single cell analysis, various researchers have devised many different methods to carry out Mass Spectroscopy for single cell analysis. This paper seeks to outline some of the important contributions made in this field, giving due importance to the methods adopted for each of those contributions.Various techniques have been developed by researchers for the purpose of mass spectrometry. Each of these methods have its own advantages and disadvantages. Among these dozens of techniques three of the most commonly used techniques are Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) [12], Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) [13] and Desorption Electrospray Ionization (DESI) [14-16]. According to Petras et al. the figures of merits (lateral / spatial resolution, mass resolution, and duty cycle) of each of these techniques are defined by ionization source and mass analyzer [17]. The development of MS methods can be classified into two different categories based on the ionization method employed. Soft ionization methods are those methods that cause only limited or no fragmentation of the sample molecules, making them more desirable. This is achieved by allowing only limited increase in the internal energy of the molecule during the process of ionization. These techniques suffer from lower mass limit of the produced ions such that the energy produced was not enough to ionize protein molecules. The hard ionization techniques, on the other hand, introduced very high fragmentation, but could ionize the proteins. This changed with the advent of MALDI [18,19].
Authors and Affiliations
Muhammad Shemyal Nisar, Xiangwei Zhao
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP622619
- DOI 10.26717/BJSTR.2019.18.003196
- Views 141
- Downloads 0
The Potential Usefulness of Several Insects and Fatty Acids in Allergic Disorders
Insects are the largest and widely distributed group of animals and contain high quality essential fatty acids, proteins and minerals. Insects, which relieves pain, can play a key role in anti-inflammatory responses by i...
Challenges Facing Genetics and Materialism
There are under-appreciated, serious behavioral challenges to science’s under-standing of life and its DNA-basis. The general problem facing the DNA model, though, has been the inability to identify the DNA origins of ma...
The Master Code of Biology: from Prions and Prions-like Invariants to the Self-assembly Thesis
For more than 25 years, we have been looking for biomathematical laws controlling and structuring DNA, genes, proteins, chromosomes and genomes [1,2]. In 1997 we discovered a simple numerical law based solely on atomic m...
Palliative Care Guide
When confronting chronic and/or serious illness many individuals wish to be active participants in determining the treatment and care provided to sustain optimal quality of life. As healthcare professionals, our goal is...
The Lifespan of Humans and Animals Can Be Significantly Extended
he averagelifespan of animals varies greatly from a few days to hundreds of years. The Antarctic sponge CinachyraAntarctica has lived for 1550 years, the ArcticaIslandica clam for more than 400 years. The longest-living...