Comprehensive two-dimensional HPLC analysis coupled with mass spectrometric detection and informative data processing for lipid analysis

In lipidomics, phospholipids are the attractive targets of analysis since lipids are important and essential components of biological membranes. However, conventional HPLC system by a single separation mode performs poorly on biological lipid sample, because it contains various kinds of lipids with common moieties that govern their behavior on column. In such a case, comprehensive two-dimensional (2D) LC will be a powerful tool. This system was capable of characterizing phospholipids both quantitatively and qualitatively when coupled with triple quadrupole and ion trap-TOF type of mass spectrometer respectively. Reliable identification of lipid species was performed by acquiring m/z values of related parent and fragment ions at high accuracy with the ion trap-TOF mass spectrometer and matching the data to commercially available data-base.