LC-MS/MS versus TLC plus GC methods: Consistency of glycerolipid and fatty acid profiles in microalgae and higher plant cells and effect of a nitrogen starvation

Methods to analyze lipidomes have considerably evolved, more and more based on mass spectrometry technics (LC-MS/MS). However, accurate quantifications using these methods require 13 C-labeled standards for each lipid, which is not feasible because of the very large number of molecules. Thus, quantifications rely on standard molecules representative of a whole class of lipids, which might lead to false estimations of some molecular species. Here, we determined and compared glycerolipid distributions from three different types of cells, two microalgae (Phaeodactylum tricornutum, Nannochloropsis gaditana) and one higher plant (Arabidopsis thaliana), using either LC-MS/MS or Thin Layer Chromatography coupled with Gas Chromatography (TLC-GC), this last approach relying on the precise quantification of the fatty acids present in each glycerolipid class. Our results showed that the glycerolipid distribution was significantly different depending on the method used. How can one reconcile these two analytical methods? Here we propose that the possible bias with MS data can be circumvented by systematically running in tandem with the sample to be analyzed a lipid extract from a qualified control (QC) of each type of cells, previously analyzed by TLC-GC, and used as an external standard to quantify the MS results. As a case study, we applied this method to compare the impact of a nitrogen deficiency on the three types of cells.