Laboratory for Single Cell Mass Spectrometry

One major goal in the life sciences is to directly observe how intracellular individual molecules behave when they cause changes in a cell's properties. While watching the dynamics of a single living cell using advanced microscopy, we have succeeded in using nanospray technology to extract intracellular molecules from organelles and analyze them with mass spectroscopy. In fact, our detection system is sufficiently sensitive that only 1 pL intracellular sample is needed to conduct the analysis in real-time. Based on this initial breakthrough, we envision a number of cellular applications to which our technique can be applied.

Research Subjects

• Development of Live Single Cell Mass Spectrometry (Live MS)
• Application of Live MS to Cell Molecular Dynamism
• Application of Live MS to Developmental Biology
• Pico-Medicine and Pico-Diagnosis
• Probe-imaging Single Cell Mass Spectrometry

Publications

1. Fukano Y, Tsuyama N, Mizuno H, Date S, Takano M, Masujima T.:
   "Drug metabolite heterogeneity in cultured single cells profiled by pico-trapping direct mass spectrometry."
   Nanomedicine (Lond). 7(9), 1365-1374 (2012)
2. Lorenzo Tejedor M, Mizuno H, Tsuyama N, Harada T, Masujima T.:
   "In situ molecular analysis of plant tissues by live single-cell mass spectrometry."
   Anal Chem. Jun 19;84(12):5221-8 (2012)
3. Date S, Mizuno H, Tsuyama N, Harada T, Masujima T.:
   "Direct drug metabolism monitoring in a live single hepatic cell by video mass spectrometry."
   Anal Sci. 28(3):201-3 (2012)
4. Tsuyama N, Mizuno H, Masujima T.:
   "Mass spectrometry for cellular and tissue analyses in a very small region."
   Anal Sci. 27(2):163-70 (2011)
5. Lorenzo Tejedor M, Mizuno H, Tsuyama N, Harada T, Masujima T.:
   "Direct single-cell molecular analysis of plant tissues by video mass spectrometry."
   Anal Sci. Sep;25(9):1053-5 (2009)
6. Masujima T.:
   "Live single-cell mass spectrometry. "
   Anal Sci. 25:953-60 (2009)
7. Mizuno H, Tsuyama N, Harada, T, Masujima T.:
   "Live single-cell video-mass spectrometry for cellular and subcellular molecular detection and cell classification."
   J. Mass Spectrom. 43:1692-1700 (2008)