Abstract
Lipidomics is a subset of metabolomics focused specifically on the analysis of lipid species. Lipids are among the most vital compounds in living organisms that serve various functions, including building blocks for cellular and extracellular vesicle membranes, signaling between the cells, and energy storage to name a few. Studying biological functions of lipids plays a significant factor in understanding their effect on human health. Lipids’ structure can be altered due to the shift in their environment caused by endogenous or exogenous factors. These factors can be genetics, diet-base, or caused by diseases. The classes of lipids vary in polarity from phospholipids to triacyl glycerides and it is estimated that there are over 300,000 possible lipid structures across when varying fatty acyl chain lengths from 12 to 26 carbons. MS based lipidomics generally requires the use of liquid chromatography to separate the complex lipids present in biofluids based on polarity and high-resolution MS to accurately measure the mass-to-charge (m/z). Tandem mass spectrometry is also essential for the correct identification of lipids because they follow well-known fragmentation routes. Advances in chromatography have enabled our ability to expand on the identification of lipids which is critical for biomarker discovery. The use of monodisperse particles can improve the speed and separation capacity of lipids. This talk will discuss analytical advances in chromatography and bioinformatics (IE-Omics) in the context of several disorders including malaria, cancer and rare diseases.