Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry Imaging for Tissue Analysis

Abstract Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) has become a significant technique of mass spectrometry (MS) to visualize the spatial distribution of molecules such as drugs, metabolites, lipids, and proteins by their molecular masses. As a representative ambient ionization method that requires minimal or no sample preparation, desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI‐MS) has been shown to have its unique strength in MSI. This article provides an overview of this powerful DESI‐MSI technique, including its basic principle, instrumentation, sample preparation, method optimization, 2D and 3D imaging, quantitation, statistical analysis, software, and its applications in pharmaceutical, clinical, biomedical, plant, microbial, and forensic researches.