Maintaining the metabolic integrity of live cells during sample transport, storage, or extended measurements is critical, particularly given the rapid turnover rate of metabolites and low throughput of most ambient-based SCMS techniques, which require substantial time to manually select and analyze a statistically significant number of cells. A recent study developed a robust methodology to preserve cellular metabolomic profiles for SCMS experiments, addressing the challenge in most ambient SCMS metabolomics studies (Figure ) 107 . This study introduced a cell preparation protocol combining washing by volatile salt solution, rapid quenching in liquid nitrogen (LN2), vacuum freeze-drying, and storage at -80 °C to stabilize cell metabolites for SCMS analysis. Experimental findings demonstrated that LN2 quenching effectively preserved the overall metabolome, while storage at -80 °C for 48 hours caused minor changes in metabolite profiles of quenched cells. In contrast, unquenched cells exhibited significant metabolic alterations despite low-temperature storage. Further investigation revealed the necessity of quenching to maintain metabolic integrity and emphasized minimizing low-temperature storage duration to limit metabolic perturbations. The proposed method is readily applicable to SCMS workflows, ensuring metabolite stability during extended studies while maintaining the fidelity of metabolic profiles.