Lipidomics – A personal view

✍ Scribed by William W. Christie

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 143 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0956-666X
• DOI: 10.1002/lite.200900009

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The science of lipidomics may not be as new as many current practitioners believe, but the methods that are being applied today, especially those involving electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, are indeed novel and extremely powerful. They are enabling a much better understanding of the functions of lipids in tissues and of the relationship to human disease states. Shotgun lipidomics, i. e. direct mass spectrometric analysis of complex lipid extracts without chromatographic steps, gives rapid access to a great deal of compositional data. On the other hand, there are limitations to even this technique, and there are still occasions when chromatographic, and chemical and enzymatic degradative methods are necessary.