• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.121-140
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• 2023

It is becoming more and more clear that each cell, even those of the same type, has a unique identity. This sophistication and the diversity of cell types in tissue are what are pushing the necessity for spatially distributed omics at the single-cell (SC) level. Single-cell chemical assessment, which also provides considerable insight into biological, clinical, pharmacodynamic, pathological, and toxicity studies, is crucial to the investigation of cellular omics (genomics, metabolomics, etc.). Mass spectrometry (MS) as a tool to image and profile single cells and subcellular organelles facilitates novel technical expertise for biochemical and biomedical research, such as assessing the intracellular distribution of drugs and the biochemical diversity of cellular populations. It has been illustrated that ambient mass spectrometry (AMS) is a valuable tool for the rapid, straightforward, and simple analysis of cellular and sub-cellular constituents and metabolites in their native state. This short review examines the advances in ambient mass spectrometry (AMS) and ambient mass spectrometry imaging (AMSI) on single-cell analysis that have been authored in recent years. The discussion also touches on typical single-cell AMS assessments and implementations.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.27-34
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• 2022

Atmospheric aerosols have become a major environmental concern because of their adverse effects on human health, air quality, and climate change. Over the last few decades, several mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques have been developed and applied in the field of atmospheric aerosol research. Particularly, real-time measurement of ambient aerosols using an aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) has become one of the most powerful tools for aerosol chemistry. This review provides a brief description of AMS and its applications for understanding the physicochemical properties of atmospheric aerosols, as well as its sources and evolution processes.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.919-924
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• 2014

Ambient ionization can be achieved by generating an electrospray directly from plant tissue ("leaf spray"). The resulting mass spectra are characteristic of ionizable phytochemicals in the plant material. By subtracting the leaf spray spectra recorded from the petals of two hibiscus species H. moscheutos and H. syriacus one gains rapid access to the metabolites that differ most in the two petals. One such compound was identified as the sambubioside of quercitin (or delphinidin) while others are known flavones. Major interest centered on a $C_{19}H_{29}NO_5$ compound that occurs only in the large H. moscheutos bloom. Attempts were made to characterize this compound by mass spectrometry alone as a test of such an approach. This showed that the compound is an alkaloid, assigned to the polyhydroxylated pyrrolidine class, and bound via a $C_3$ hydrocarbon unit to a monoterpene.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.57-78
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• 2023

Understanding the chemical composition of the brain helps researchers comprehend various neurological processes effectively. Understanding of the fundamental pathological processes that underpin many neurodegenerative disorders has recently advanced thanks to the advent of innovative bioanalytical techniques that allow high sensitivity and specificity with chemical imaging at high resolution in tissues and cells. Mass spectrometry imaging [MSI] has become more common in biomedical research to map the spatial distribution of biomolecules in situ. The technique enables complete and untargeted delineation of the in-situ distribution characteristics of proteins, metabolites, lipids, and peptides. MSI's superior molecular specificity gives it a significant edge over traditional histochemical methods. Recent years have seen a significant increase in MSI, which is capable of simultaneously mapping the distribution of thousands of biomolecules in the tissue specimen at a high resolution and is otherwise beyond the scope of other molecular imaging techniques. This review aims to acquaint the reader with the MSI experimental workflow, significant recent advancements, and implementations of MSI techniques in visualizing the anatomical distribution of neurochemicals in the human brain in relation to various neurogenerative diseases.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.71-74
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• 2015

Low temperature plasma (LTP) ionization mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the widely used ambient analysis methods which allows soft-ionization and rapid analysis of samples in ambient condition with minimal or no sample preparation. One of the major advantages of LTP MS is selective analysis of low-molecular weight, volatile and low- to medium-polarity analytes in a sample. On the contrary, the selectivity for particular class of compound also implies its limitation in general analysis. One of the critical factors limiting LTP ionization efficiency is poor desorption of analytes with low volatility. In this study, a home-built LTP ionization source with Peltier heating sample stage was constructed to enhance desorption and ionization efficiencies of analytes in a sample and its performance was evaluated using standard mixture containing fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs). It was also used to reproduce the previous bacterial identification experiment using pattern-recognition for FAEEs. Our result indicates, however, that the bacterial differentiation from FAEE pattern recognition using LTP ionization MS still has many limitations.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.163-171
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• 2021

Emiliania huxleyi is a marine phytoplankton that plays a critical role in global carbon and sulfur cycling. The genome of E. huxleyi has been sequenced, and an in-depth proteomic profile of this organism has been reported. This study analyzed the phosphoproteome of E. huxleyi and identified its changes under calcium-limited conditions. A TiO₂ microcolumn was used for phosphopeptide enrichment, followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis. Overall, we identified 7,010 phosphorylated sites on 3,355 phosphopeptides associated with 2,929 phosphoproteins in E. huxleyi. Quantitative analysis revealed changes in the phosphoproteome in E. huxleyi when ambient conditions changed to calcium-limited conditions, notably the phosphorylation of some transporters was altered. This study provides an overview of protein phosphorylation in E. huxleyi and paves the way for further investigations of its biological functions.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.103-107
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• 2019

Low-temperature plasma (LTP) ionization is one of the ambient ionization methods typically used in mass spectrometry (MS) for fast screening of chemicals with minimal or no sample preparation. In spite of various advantages of LTP ionization method, including simple instrumentation and in-situ analysis, more general applications of the method are limited due to poor desorption of analytes with low volatilities and low ionization efficiencies in the negative ion mode. In order to overcome these limitations, an ultrasonic vibrator of a commercial hand-held humidifier was interfaced with an LTP ionization source, which generated microdroplets from sample solutions and assisted with LTP ionization. Ionization behaviors of various chemicals in microdroplet-assisted LTP (MA LTP) were tested and compared with typical LTP ionization from dried samples applied on a surface. MA LTP efficiently ionized small organic, amino, and fatty acids with low volatilities and high polarities, which were hardly ionized using the standard LTP method. Facile interaction of LTP with ultrafine droplets generated by ultrasonic resonator allows efficient ionization of relatively non-volatile and polar analytes both in the positive and negative ion modes.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.420-431
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• 2009

Characteristics and advantages of the thermal desorption-comprehensive two dimensional gas chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry (TD-GCxGC-TOFMS) were discussed and the organic compound's analysis result was shown for the ambient $PM_{2.5}$ sample collected in Seoul, Korea. Over 10,000 individual organic compounds were separated from about $70{\mu}g$ of aerosols in a single procedure with no sample pre-treatment. Among them, around 300 compounds were identified and classified based on the mass fragmentation patterns and GCxGC retention times. Several aliphatic compounds groups such as alkanes, alkenes, cycloalkanes, alkanoic acids, and alkan-2-ones were identified as well as 72 PAH compounds including alkyl substituted compounds and 8 hopanes. In Seoul aerosol, numerous oxidized aromatic compounds including major components of secondary organic aerosols were observed. The inventory of organic compounds in $PM_{2.5}$ of Seoul, Korea suggested that organic aerosol were constituted by the compounds of primary source emission as well as the formation of secondary organic aerosols.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2015

Direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) is one of the variants of ambient mass spectrometry. The ionization process of DART-MS is in open environment and only takes few seconds, so it is suitable for fast analysis. Actually, since its introduction in 2005, more and more attentions have been drawn to its various applications due to its excellent properties, e.g., fast analysis, and no or less sample preparation, high salt tolerance and so on. This review summarized the promising features of DART-MS, including its ionization mechanism, equipment modification, wide applications, coupling techniques and extraction strategies before analysis.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.393-405
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• 2018

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are representative air pollutants due to their detrimental effects on human health and their role in formation of secondary organic aerosols. Assessments and monitoring programs of VOCs using periodic grab sampling like Tedlar bags, canisters, and sorbent traps provide limited information, often with delay times of days or weeks. Selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) is an emerging analytical technique for the real-time quantification of VOCs in air. It relies on chemical ionization of the VOCs molecules in air introduced into helium carrier gas using $H_3O^+$, $NO^+$, and $O_2{^+}$ precursor ions. Real-time monitoring method of 60 VOCs in the ambient air was developed using TO-15 standard gas mixture. Calibration curves, method detection limit, and quantitation reproducibility of the target compounds were tested. Dynamic dilution system was used to dilute standard gas from 0.174 ppbv to 100 ppbv, where calibration curves showed good linearity with $r^2$> 0.95 in all target analytes. Limit of detection (LOD) all compounds were sub ppbv, and some halogenated compounds showed pptv levels. Seven consecutive analyses of target compounds showed good repeatability with relative standard deviation of less than 10%. One day monitoring of VOCs in ambient air was conducted in Geoje. Average concentration of target VOCs in Geoje were relatively lower than other regions, among which formaldehyde showed the highest concentration ($15.4{\pm}5.78ppbv$). SIFT-MS provided good temporal resolution data (1 data per 3.2 minute), which can be used for identifying ephemeral short-term event. It is expected that SIFT-MS will be a versatile monitoring platform for VOCs in ambient air.