Imaging the Unimaginable: Desorption Electrospray Ionization – Imaging Mass Spectrometry (DESI-IMS) in Natural Product Research

Imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) has recently established itself in the field of “spatial metabolomics.” Merging the sensitivity and fast screening of high-throughput mass spectrometry with spatial and temporal chemical information, IMS visualizes the production, location, and distribution of metabolites in intact biological models. Since metabolite profiling and morphological features are combined in single images, IMS offers an unmatched chemical detail on complex biological and microbiological systems. Thus, IMS-type “spatial metabolomics” emerges as a powerful and complementary approach to genomics, transcriptomics, and classical metabolomics studies. In this review, we summarize the current state-of-the-art IMS methods with a strong focus on desorption electrospray ionization (DESI)-IMS. DESI-IMS utilizes the original principle of electrospray ionization, but in this case solvent droplets are rastered and desorbed directly on the sample surface. The rapid and minimally destructive DESI-IMS chemical screening is achieved at ambient conditions and enables the accurate view of molecules in tissues at the µm-scale resolution. DESI-IMS analysis does not require complex sample preparation and allows repeated measurements on samples from different biological sources, including microorganisms, plants, and animals. Thanks to its easy workflow and versatility, DESI-IMS has successfully been applied to many different research fields, such as clinical analysis, cancer research, environmental sciences, microbiology, chemical ecology, and drug discovery. Herein we discuss the present applications of DESI-IMS in natural product research.