Table 3.

Technical advances in sample preparation of microbial DESI-MSI.

Time	Introduced Technique	Advantage	Reference
2010	A thin film imprinting technique with mixed cellulose ester filter membranes	Uses a complementary surface to make an imprint of the bacterial culture from solid agar for imaging	[57]
2012	Nano-DESI-MSI technology	Direct chemical monitoring of living microbial colonies grown on a Petri dish	[70]
2014	A “cardboard insert” method	An effective method for fungal culture imaging in situ with a hard and flat surface	[71]
2015	A protocol on microbial agar culture for direct DESI-MSI	Offers rapid sample preparation with a dehydrated and hard surface for imaging	[69]
2017	A constant-distance nano-DESI-MSI imaging model	An ideal method for imaging microbial samples with complex topography	[72]
2019	A microbial sample reparation method with microporous membrane scaffolds (MMS)	An effective method for imaging and evaluating microbial interspecies interactions	[73]

Note: DESI: desorption electrospray ionization; MSI: mass spectrometry imaging.