Special focus: lipidomics
Welcome to our special focus on lipidomics!
EDITORIALS | JOURNAL ARTICLES | INTERVIEWS | RESOURCES
In this feature, we will be investigating the latest developments and advances in the field of lipidomics, which encompasses the complex analysis of lipidomes, the complete lipid profiles within given cells, tissues, organisms or ecosystems. Lipidomics also investigates the interactions of lipids or lipidomes with other molecules (e.g. proteins, metabolites, glycans or other lipids).
The main challenges associated with lipidomics are the large number of isobaric molecular species, or compounds with identical molecular formula and weight but different spatial configurations. Some species are also iso-elemental, in that they share identical elemental compositions but are different chemical species. Due to high similarity between species, there is a high level of spectral overlap, which cannot be resolved simply by high-resolution technologies.
Developments in mass spectrometry and combined techniques such as LC–MS have allowed fast progression of the application of lipidomics, particularly when investigating metabolic disorders such as obesity, diabetes and atherosclerosis.
Editorials:
Ask the Editor: lipidomics FAQ
New to lipidomics? Check out our ‘Ask the Editor’ piece! With help from Erin Baker (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; WA, USA), Bioanalysis Zone Editor, Georgi Makin (Future Science Group; London, UK), answers key questions about the field of lipidomics in a short, ‘FAQ’ style article.Read/watch time: 3 mins
Routine lipidomics, are we there yet?
In this editorial, Albert Koulman (University of Cambridge; Cambridge, UK) discusses whether a routine approach to lipidomic analysis may be possible, and what challenges may need to be considered for this to be the case.Albert is currently the head of the NIHR BRC funded core Metabolomic and Lipidomics Laboratory and the Nutritional Biomarker Laboratory, both in Cambridge. He is also a principal investigator in the Metabolic Research Laboratory in Cambridge.
Read time: 4:30 mins
NEW: The translational lipidomics workflows accelerating lipid biomarker development
In this editorial, Dr David Peake focuses on the growing application of lipidomics in assessing human health and how it is now being developed as a diagnostic tool.David is currently the Senior Strategic Marketing Specialist for Metabolomics/Lipidomics and Product Manager of LipidSearch software at Thermo Fisher Scientific (MA, USA)
Read time: 3:30 mins
Journal articles:
Articles from the Bioanalysis Special Focus Issue on lipidomics
> Evaluating lipid mediator structural complexity using ion mobility spectrometry combined with mass spectrometry
Interviews:
Find out more about Erin Baker and Panagiotis Vorkas (Imperial College London; London, UK), authors of papers featured in the Bioanalysis Special Focus Issue on lipidomics. In these short interviews, as part of our author’s perspective series, Erin and Panagiotis discuss why their research into Lipidomics is important to bioanalysis, and why their work is worthy of publication.
Click here to find out more about our ongoing author’s perspective series.
Erin Baker on evaluating lipid mediator structural complexity
Dr Erin Baker is a bioanalytical chemist with more than 18 years’ experience and over 90 publications utilizing ion-mobility spectrometry in conjunction with mass spectrometry (IMS–MS) to study environmental and biological systems. In the last 12 years, she has worked on IMS–MS applications in the field of proteomics, and more recently she optimized IMS–MS metabolomic, glycomic and lipidomic separations. Her research involves the development and evaluation of high-throughput IMS–MS, SPE–IMS–MS and LC–IMS–MS analyses to quickly study numerous samples in a short time period without losing valuable biological information, as well as assessing the number and quality of features detected with IMS–MS for comparison with existing MS platforms. Dr Baker is also presently working with various informatics teams to design and implement software tools that automatically analyze the complex multidimensional SPE–IMS–MS and LC–IMS–MS data.Read time: 2:30 mins
NEW: Panagiotis Vorkas on expanding lipidome coverage using MS/MS-aided untargeted data-independent RP-UPLC-TOF-MSE acquisition
Panagiotis Vorkas is a post-doctoral researcher at the Section of Computational and Systems Medicine of Imperial College London. He is focusing in bioanalysis with special interest in developing workflows utilizing targeted and untargeted metabolic and lipid profiling approaches in the analysis of tissue and biofluids. His developed pipelines have the ultimate aim of expanding metabolome coverage. He is working under the theme of cardiovascular disease and risk factors. Guided by biomarker discovery approaches he is now elaborating on biomarker validation and elucidation of disease pathways.Panos obtained a Bachelor degree in Chemistry in 2006 and a Masters in Clinical Chemistry in 2009. He was awarded a PhD in Biochemistry in August 2014. He is also is a past recipient of the Bioanalysis Rising Star Award (formerly the New Investigator Award).
Read time: 3:15 mins
Resources:
FLASHBACK: Lipidomics advance could allow earlier diagnosis of cancer
March 2016: New analytical method enables researchers to identify and quantify lipids isomers, potentially allowing for early diagnosis of cancer.
Read time: 1:30 mins
WEBINAR: Bioanalysis of liposomal drugs by LC–MS/MS
Monday 26 March 2018 – 09:00 [PDT] 12:00 [EDT] 17:00 [BST]
In this webinar, Kai Wang (Frontage Laboratories Inc; PA, USA) describes the background of bioanalysis for liposomal drugs, methods to separate free drugs from encapsulated drugs, and how to develop and validate bioanalytical methods for the quantitation of total, encapsulated and free drug concentrations and case studies.
Watch time: 60 mins
WEBINAR: Metabolomics and lipidomics strategies for clinical research and biomarker discovery
Giuseppe Astarita (Waters Corporation; MA, USA) presents this webinar, describing state-of-the-art technology for clinical research and biomarker discovery. Available to view on demand.Watch time: 31:03 mins
