Polar Lipid Profiling by Supercritical Fluid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry Method

Polar lipids, such as phospholipids (PLs) and sphingolipids, are abundant in plant oils and are the major component of biological membranes. These lipids also play important physiological roles in cellular signaling. High-throughput simultaneous analyses for all types of lipids, including polar lipids, are favorable to elucidate the function of individual lipid molecular species or to distinguish among phenotypes. The research field aimed at comprehensive lipid profiling is called lipidomics. Because of the diversity of chemical structures and the wide range of polarities in lipids, a powerful separation technique is required for comprehensive lipid profiling. Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC)/Mass Spectrometry (MS) is the ideal tool for lipid profiling due to the features of the mobile phase. This chapter introduces the benefits of SFC/MS and focuses on analytical methods for comprehensive polar lipid profiling using SFC/MS. It summarizes the present situation and future perspectives of polar lipid profiling using SFC/MS. SFC enables high throughput and comprehensive separation of lipids with diverse polarities. In addition, the sensitivity can be enhanced by coupling to MS. It is expected that further study of this separation mechanism will make SFC a useful tool that provides the complex lipid profile of polar lipids, including the diverse structural analogs and isomers that are frequently found in biological systems.