Whole-body chemical imaging of Cordyceps sinensis by TOF-SIMS to visualize spatial differentiation of ergosterol and other active components

Schematic representation of TOF-SIMS based whole-body chemical imaging of Cordyceps sinensis to visualize spatial differentiation of ergosterol and other active components. • Whole-body chemical imaging of C. sinensis was realized by developing a feasible “segmentation-imaging-splicing” strategy based on TOF-SIMS. • Spatial differentiation of ergosterol in C. sinensis was visualized in both macroscopic and microscopic horizon. • Muti-components chemical imaging was implemented to analyze the distribution characteristics of different active components and their biological functions. • TOF-SIMS was first applied to image a whole-body biosample at centimeter scale with high spatial resolution.. Analysis of active components in Cordyceps sinensis (C. sinensis) is emerging as a research hotspot in traditional Chinese medicine. Here, the visualization of spatial differentiation of ergosterol and other active components in whole C. sinensis was first realized by developing a feasible and simple “segmentation-imaging-splicing” strategy based on time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). A C. sinensis was divided into four parts for TOF-SIMS ion imaging due to its irregular shape and centimeter-scale longitudinal length. Whole-body chemical mapping of C. sinensis was then accomplished by splicing these ion images with normalized size and signal intensity. Specifically, ergosterol was found more enriched in host caterpillar, especially enriched in the top of host caterpillar, than in fruiting body. Moreover, ergosterol and lipids showed obviously complementary distribution pattern in some special structures of C. sinensis . This panoramic scanning strategy could provide abundant information about the macroscopic and microscopic spatial differentiation of active components in whole C. sinensis , facilitating the realization of multi-component analysis. The results are expected to give further insight into the growth process of C. sinensis in a new vision and promote the development of extraction technologies for active ingredients in C. sinensis .