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A novel online two-dimensional supercritical fluid chromatography/reversed phase liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry method for lipid profiling

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Abstract

A novel online two-dimensional supercritical fluid chromatography/reversed-phase liquid chromatography–triple-quadrupole mass spectrometry (2D SFC/RPLC–QQQ MS) method based on a vacuum solvent evaporation interface was developed for lipid profiling in human plasma, in which lipid classes were separated by the first-dimension SFC and different lipid molecular species were further separated by the second-dimension RPLC. All separation condition parameters were carefully optimized, and their influence on the chromatographic behavior of lipids is discussed. Finally, the recoveries of 11 lipid standards were all more than 88% for the interface. Besides, the limit of detection for these lipid standards was on the order of nanograms per milliliter, and the relative standard deviations of the peak area and retention time ranged from 1.54% to 19.85% and from 0.00% to 0.10%, respectively. The final 2D SFC/RPLC–QQQ MS method allowed the identification of 370 endogenous lipid species from ten lipid classes, including diacylglycerol, triacylglycerol, ceramide, glucosylceramide, galactosylceramide, lactosylceramide, sphingomyelin, acylcarnitine, phosphatidylcholine, and lysophosphatidylethanolamine, in human plasma within 38 min, which was used for screening potential lipid biomarkers in breast cancer. The 2D SFC/RPLC–QQQ MS method is a potentially useful tool for in-depth studies focused on complex lipid metabolism and biomarker discovery.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Shaohua Zhang and Yi Liu from the Fifth Medical Center of the People’s Liberation Armay General Hospital for providing human plasma samples and Agilent Technologies for providing the instruments. This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 21527809), the National Key R&D Program of China (no. 2017YFC0906800) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (no. 201801D221070).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Institute of Analytical Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100871, China

    Li Yang, Fan Zhao, Shiyao Song, Yu Bai & Huwei Liu

  2. College of Pharmacy, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, 030001, Shanxi, China

    Li Yang

  3. Analytical Instrumentation Center, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Honggang Nie

  4. Agilent Technologies, 3 Wangjing North Road, Beijing, 100102, China

    Ying Meng

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  1. Li Yang
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  2. Honggang Nie
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  3. Fan Zhao
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  4. Shiyao Song
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  7. Huwei Liu
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Correspondence to Huwei Liu.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Published in the topical collection Current Progress in Lipidomics with guest editors Michal Holčapek, Gerhard Liebisch, and Kim Ekroos.

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Yang, L., Nie, H., Zhao, F. et al. A novel online two-dimensional supercritical fluid chromatography/reversed phase liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry method for lipid profiling. Anal Bioanal Chem 412, 2225–2235 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-02242-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-02242-x

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