Liquid Chromatography Techniques in Lipidomics Research

Lipids represent a very diverse group of compounds witha high variety of physicochemical properties determining their functional activities. For omics-wide identification of lipid species from complex biological samples, several crucial analytical steps including extraction, chromatographic separation and mass spectrometry analysis need to be carefully considered and validated. Here we review applications of three main chromatography techniquesreversed phase, normal phase and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatographyfor analysis of complex natural lipidomes aiming to uncover the diversity of lipid species. To correlate lipid separation with their physicochemical properties, lipid chemical space was reconstructed and used to explain principles underlying different chromatographic techniques. Furthermore, examples of available methods for analysis of complex natural lipidomes characterized by high diversity and dynamic range of lipid concentrations are illustrated for adipose tissue lipidomics. [GRAPHICS] .