Drug Discovery Frontier by Live Single-cell Imaging Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

In contrast to the current molecular imaging technologies which use probes for known molecules, a new single cellular level imaging method was innovated for more exhaustive molecular detection by mass spectrometry combined with visualization of cell morphological dynamism by a video-microscope, called "live single-cell imaging mass spectrometry". This method was successfully applied to drug metabolism analysis in a single hepatitis cell and pico-liter trapping direct molecular analysis of body fluids, such as saliva. This method will directly show the drug localization in a cell and speed up the drug discovery process.