Mass Spectrometry Imaging in Agro-food System

The evolution of agriculture has given rise to the agrofood system that extend far beyond the farm. It consists of the entire network from cultivation and harvesting to processing, packaging, distributing, and consuming food products. As these modern agriculture and food systems advance, so does the molecular complexity of the food. Understanding their molecular makeup is important for food quality, safety, and the development of new products. Chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry-based techniques are routinely employed to characterize molecular composition of plant and food products. Their sample preparation involves homogenization which disrupts the original spatial arrangement of molecules within the sample. Knowing the spatial localization is important as both fresh produce and processed foods exhibit non-uniform localization of molecules. As a valuable adjunct to these traditional techniques, mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) allows the researchers to spatially resolve the heterogeneity of complex food matrices.