Lipidomics by Supercritical Fluid Chromatography

Abstract

This review enlightens the role of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) in the field of lipid analysis. SFC has been popular in the late 1980s and 1990s before almost disappearing due to the commercial success of liquid chromatography (LC). It is only 20 years later that a regain of interest appeared when new commercial instruments were introduced. As SFC is fully compatible with the injection of extracts in pure organic solvent, this technique is perfectly suitable for lipid analysis and can be coupled with either highly universal (UV or evaporative light scattering) or highly specific (mass spectrometry) detection methods. A short history of the use of supercritical fluids as mobile phase for the separation oflipids will be introduced first. Then, the advantages and drawbacks of SFC are discussed for each class of lipids (fatty acyls, glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, sterols, prenols, polyketides) defined by the LIPID MAPS consortium.

Supercritical Fluid Chromatography and Its Application in Lipid Isomer Separation

“…Many literatures reports separating the various hydrophobic metabolites in the biological system using SFC [20,21]. The applications of SFC in lipid analysis had been critically reviewed [22,23], while this mini-review focuses on the separation of lipid isomers according to their classes such as phospholipids [24][25][26][27][28], fatty acyls [29] and prenol lipids [30][31][32] etc.…”

Recent advances in liquid‐phase separations for clinical metabolomics

“…Therefore, SFC may become an essential tool to tackle one of the most important challenges in lipidomics, i.e ., the separation of structural isomers or enantiomers. Indeed, the biological activity of a wide diversity of lipids can largely differ among isomers, underlying the crucial importance of isomer analysis . An example is the lipid mediator 14(15)‐epoxyeicosatrienoic acid (EET), a metabolite of arachidonic acid which is metabolized through multiple pathways including the enzyme soluble epoxide hydrolase, and is composed of four different isomers, i.e ., 14( S ),15( S )‐; 14( R ),15( S )‐; 14( S ),15( R )‐; and 14( R ),15( R )‐EET.…”

“…Importantly, different isomers might be characteristic for specific biochemical routes. A key step will concern the possibility to separate and individually detect isomers from fatty acid oxidation, derivatives or oxylipins, which are known to regulate a large variety of cellular and (patho)physiological functions—even though the specific activity of each isomer remains mostly unknown . Bamba and co‐workers already laid the first stone by proposing an SFC–MS/MS method for the profiling of oxidized phosphatidylcholine isomers, including hydroxides, hydroperoxides, and epoxides .…”

Study of the effect of the operating parameters on the separation of bioactive compounds of palm oil by ultra‐high performance supercritical fluid chromatography using a design of experiments approach

“…Furthermore, its critical properties (P c ¼ 7.38 MPa, T c ¼ 304.13 K) are easily attainable. [6][7][8] SFC experiments were initially performed with pure CO 2 as the mobile phase. Nowadays, a mixture of CO 2 and organic modifier is very often used in order to increase the solubility of polar compounds and allow their elution.…”