Triacylglycerols (TAGs), essential energy storage lipids, are easily detected by conventional MALDI MS when occurring on their own. However, their signals are easily overwhelmed by other lipids, mainly phosphatidylcholines (PCs) and, therefore, require purification. In order to profile TAGs from crude lipid mixtures without prefractionation, we investigated alternative matrixes that can suppress phospholipid ion signals and enhance cationization of TAGs. We found that an aqueous solution of citrate-capped gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with a diameter of 12 nm is a superior matrix for the laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (LDI MS) of TAGs in crude lipid mixtures. The AuNP matrix effectively suppressed other lipid signals such as phospholipids and also provided 100 times lower detection limit for TAGs than 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB), the best conventional MALDI matrix for TAGs. The AuNP-assisted LDI MS enabled us to obtain detailed TAG profiles including minor species directly from crude beef lipid extracts without phospholipid interference. In addition, we could detect TAGs at a trace level from a total brain lipid extract.
Sex hormones are important metabolites in vertebrates' development and reproduction. For rapid screening sex hormones, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the promising analytical platforms, but MALDI MS faces many challenges in detecting steroids such as low ionization efficiency and matrix background interference. One potential strategy to overcome matrix interference in the low m/z region is using a cyclodextrin (CD)-supported matrix for steroid analysis since CDsupported matrixes are known to effectively suppress matrix-related ion signals. In this study, we aimed to find the optimal CD-supported matrix for the analysis of the nonderivatized sex steroids. Our results showed that the αCD-supported 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB) matrix efficiently ionized all three major classes of sex hormones, estrogens, androgens, and progestagens, with low or no matrix background and also with high sensitivity. In addition, the αCD-supported DHB matrix mainly generated molecular ions or protonated ions of sex hormones, and this enabled us to obtain information-rich tandem mass spectra which potentially lead to unambiguous identification of steroid species from complex metabolite mixtures.
Matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS) is a very effective method for lipid mass fingerprinting. However, MALDI MS suffered from spectral complexities, differential ionization efficiencies, and poor reproducibility when analyzing complex lipid mixtures without prior separation steps. Here, we aimed to find optimal MALDI sample preparation methods which enable selective or class-wide mass fingerprinting of two totally different lipid classes. In order to achieve this, various matrices with additives were tested against the mixture of phosphatidylcholine (PC) and cerebrosides (Cers) which are abundant in animal brain tissues and also of great interests in disease biology. Our results showed that, from complex lipid mixtures, 2,4,6-trihydroxyacetophenone (THAP) with NaNO 3 was a useful MALDI matrix for the class-wide fingerprinting of PC and Cers. In contrast, THAP efficiently generated PC-focused profiles and graphene oxide (GO) with NaNO 3 provided Cer-only profiles with reduced spectral complexity.
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