Development of a reverse-phase liquid chromatography electrospray ionization mass spectrometry method for lipidomics, improving detection of phosphatidic acid and phosphatidylserine

In the studies of lipid metabolomics, liquid chromatography electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC/MS) is a robust and popular technique. Although effective reverse-phase LC methods enabling the separation of phospholipid molecular species have been developed, there are still problems with the separation of phosphatidic acid (PA) and phosphatidylserine (PS). These acidic phospholipids often elute as extensively broad peaks, causing inferior separation, detection, and quantification—a severe limitation of the method. In this study, we have developed reverse-phase LC conditions that reduce the undesired peak tailings in the elution profiles of both PA and PS, by using a starting mobile phase containing a low concentration of phosphoric acid (5 μM) and a high percentage of water (40%). Our method sensitively analyzes PA, PS, and their lysoforms, as well as the other phospholipids within a biological sample, in a single chromatographic step by an LC/MS method and, thus, is suitable for lipidomics.