Microseparation of Lipophilic and Hydrophilic Metabolites for Single Oocyte Mass Spectrometry Analysis.

Single-cell metabolic analysis has not yet achieved the coverage of bulk analysis due to the diversity of cellular metabolites and the ionization competition among species. Direct ionization methods without separation lead to the masking of low-intensity species. By designing a capillary column emitter and introducing reverse-phase chromatography principles, we achieved the microseparation of lipophilic and hydrophilic metabolites and lowered the limit of detection of hydrophilic metabolites to the level of a single oocyte.

Single-Cell Unsaturated Lipid Profiling for Studying Chemoresistance Heterogeneity of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells.

Chemoresistance to triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a critical issue in clinical practice. Lipid metabolism takes a unique role in breast cancer cells; especially, unsaturated lipids involving cell membrane fluidity and peroxidation are highly remarked. At present, for the lack of a high-resolution molecular recognition platform at the single-cell level, it is still hard to systematically study chemoresistance heterogeneity based on lipid unsaturation proportion.

Single-cell metabolite profiling enables information-rich classification of lymphocyte types and subtypes.

Lymphocytes play crucial roles in the human immune system; however, detailed metabolite characteristics need to be further investigated. Herein, we propose a lymphocyte classification method based on metabolite profiling at the single-cell level. The percentages of different lymphocyte types were calculated with a low margin of error, confirming that the metabolites could serve as a basis for lymphocyte classification.