Mass Spectrometry Imaging for Vegetables: A Review

In this review, the use of mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) was addressed, focusing on the study of plant tissues, especially vegetables. The discussion about the taxonomy of plant tissues and organs is commonly based on immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence essays. Although these techniques are quite appropriate for the structural study of tissues and organs, their low specificity limits their use to the identification of only a few compounds. Mass spectrometry (MS) hyphenated with chromatography techniques are capable to identifying a wide variety of compounds in plant tissue matrices, but these analyzes do not provide spatial information of the sample. MSI techniques stands out in this scenario due their capacity to provide information about both composition and spatial distribution of different biological matrices in the in the same approach. The potential of the MSI techniques to provide information about primary and secondary metabolites in plant tissue, as well as chemical responses associated with external stimuli, can be demonstrated through published works that employ different ionization sources such as SIMS, MALDI and DESI and their modifications.