How much detail can you get of the composition of a cell out of mass spectroscopy, how much it cost, and how long does it take per experiment?

[cirosantilli]

I'm trying to better understand how big is the potential impact of mass spectroscopy on the full mathematical understanding of cells: https://github.com/cirosantilli/awesome-whole-cell-simulation

So...

• how much detail of the cell composition can you see? Can you know how much of every macro and small molecule a given cell contains? Or just a subset?
• does it work for individual cells? Or is it too small that you need a larger group of cells? It would be a shame if it does not work for individual cells, as we would be losing a lot of resolution.
• how much does the equipment cost? How much do the reagents per experiment cost?
• how long does it take per experiment?
• is knowing the average composition of the cell enough, or is it really important to know in which part of the cell each component is (not sure there is such a thing as prokaryotes, I think they are just amorphous?)

Likely answered to a good extent at:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4JtnM-4Lds
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFOodSbH9IY

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/How-much-detail-can-you-get-of-the-composition-of-a-cell-out-of-mass-spectroscopy