April 9, 12:00 pm / Online - Zoom

Title: “Lipidomics: high-throughput exploratory analysis guided by chemical functionalities”

Speaker: Christina Ferreira, PhD, Metabolite Profiling Facility (MPF), Bindley Bioscience Center, Purdue University

Summary: In this seminar we will present a method for the exploratory analysis of lipids named multiple reaction monitoring (MRM)-profiling. The method employs a different analytical strategy compared to untargeted lipidomics by LC-MS. First, there is no liquid chromatography; the lipid extracts are injected directly into the source of the mass spectrometer, which confers speed to the analyses. We then trust the mass spectrometer to do the separation of the ions “internally” by using scan types that can profile chemical functionalities, and specific combinations of parent (intact) and fragment ions related to specific lipid classes. The parent-fragment ion scan is known as the MRM scan, and it is the most sensitive scan type in mass spectrometry. The MRM scan data on lipids is analyzed as a chemical profile, hence, the name MRM-profiling. We will also discuss the lipidomics capabilities, including LC-MS, available at the Metabolite Profiling Facility at Bindley Bioscience Center at Purdue University.