质谱成像技术（MSI）是一种无标记分子成像技术，能够无目标地检测广泛的生物分子和异生物。MSI能够对来自各种样本的蛋白质、肽、脂质和代谢产物的空间分布进行成像。迄今为止，该技术常用于癌症诊断和生物标记物开发的组织切片，同时也是分子组织学的一般应用。方法学和生物信息学的进步提高了MS成像分辨率至单个细胞水平以下，并提高了工作流的灵活性。然而，基于MSI的病毒学研究刚刚开始蓬勃发展，并且其完整潜力尚未得到发挥。在本文中，我们讨论了MSI在病毒学中的主要应用。我们回顾了基质辅助激光解吸/电离（MALDI）成像质谱技术在病毒学中最广泛的应用。此外，我们总结了与MSI研究相关的文献，这些研究旨在揭示病毒与宿主相互作用和病毒发病机理，阐明抗病毒药物动力学，并改进当前的病毒性疾病诊断。总的来说，这些研究极大地提高了我们对病毒感染宿主组织的蛋白质组、代谢组和代谢产物分布变化的总体认识，包括人、动物和植物。此外，最新的MSI研究为药物分布和分布动力学提供了重要启示，特别是在抗逆转录病毒研究中。最后，对致癌病毒的基于MSI的调查极大地增加了我们对肿瘤质量特征的认识，并促进了癌症生物标记物的识别。Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is a label-free molecular imaging technique allowing an untargeted detection of a broad range of biomolecules and xenobiotics. MSI enables imaging of the spatial distribution of proteins, peptides, lipids and metabolites from a wide range of samples. To date, this technique is commonly applied to tissue sections in cancer diagnostics and biomarker development, but also molecular histology in general. Advances in the methodology and bioinformatics improved the resolution of MS images below the single cell level and increased the flexibility of the workflow. However, MSI-based research in virology is just starting to gain momentum and its full potential has not been exploited yet. In this review, we discuss the main applications of MSI in virology. We review important aspects of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) MSI, the most widely used MSI technique in virology. In addition, we summarize relevant literature on MSI studies that aim to unravel virus-host interactions and virus pathogenesis, to elucidate antiviral drug kinetics and to improve current viral disease diagnostics. Collectively, these studies strongly improve our general understanding of virus-induced changes in the proteome, metabolome and metabolite distribution in host tissues of humans, animals and plants upon infection. Furthermore, latest MSI research provided important insights into the drug distribution and distribution kinetics, especially in antiretroviral research. Finally, MSI-based investigations of oncogenic viruses greatly increased our knowledge on tumor mass signatures and facilitated the identification of cancer biomarkers.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.