A High Throughput Lipidomics Method Using Scheduled Multiple Reaction Monitoring
Akash Kumar Bhaskar, Salwa Naushin, Arjun Ray, Praveen Singh, Anurag Raj, Shalini Pradhan, Khushboo Adlakha, Towfida Jahan Siddiqua, Dipankar Malakar, Debasis Dash, Shantanu Sengupta
Abstract
Lipid compositions of cells, tissues, and bio-fluids are complex, with varying concentrations and structural diversity making their identification challenging. Newer methods for comprehensive analysis of lipids are thus necessary. Herein, we propose a targeted-mass spectrometry based lipidomics screening method using a combination of variable retention time window and relative dwell time weightage. Using this method, we identified more than 1000 lipid species within 24-min. The limit of detection varied from the femtomolar to the nanomolar range. About 883 lipid species were detected with a coefficient of variance <30%. We used this method to identify plasma lipids altered due to vitamin B12 deficiency and found a total of 18 lipid species to be altered. Some of the lipid species with ω-6 fatty acid chains were found to be significantly increased while ω-3 decreased in vitamin B12 deficient samples. This method enables rapid screening of a large number of lipid species in a single experiment and would substantially advance our understanding of the role of lipids in biological processes.