Lipidomics: Prospects from a technological perspective

Abstract

Over the last two decades, lipidomics has evolved into an 'omics' technology pari passu with benchmarking 'omics' technologies, such as genomics or proteomics. The driving force behind this development was a constant advance in mass spectrometry and related technologies. The aim of this opinion article is to give the interested reader a concise but still comprehensive overview about the technological state of the art in lipidomics, current challenges and perspectives for future development. As such, this article guides through the whole workflow of lipidomics, from sampling to data analysis. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: BBALIP_Lipidomics Opinion Articles edited by Sepp Kohlwein.

Keywords: Biomarker discovery; Chromatography; Data processing; Lipid extraction; Lipidomics; Mass spectrometry.

Figure 1

Overview of lipidomic sample preparation strategies.

Figure 2

Different levels of lipid identification, exemplified by 1-palmitoyl,2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine. As the information about the lipid grows more comprehensive, the effort necessary for identification (example techniques right of the pyramid) multiplies. PC, phosphatidylcholine; PIS, product ion scan; HR/AM, high resolution accurate mass; MS², tandem mass spectrometry

Figure 3

Targeted and non-targeted analysis in lipidomics. While targeted lipidomics approaches often result in accurate quantitative data of a limited number of lipids, the focus of non-targeted methods is set to recognition of specific regulation patterns and subsequent identification of its key compounds. DDA, data-dependent acquisition.