MALDI mass spectrometry lipidomics

Recent advances of mass spectrometry and chromatography, and their hyphenated technologies in lipidomics analyses have been reviewed by Li and coworkers [38]. Soft ionization techniques such hquid secondary ion mass spectrometry (LSI-MS) [39] and FAB [40] allowed the mass spectrometric analyses of polar thermally labile molecules of masses up to a few thousand daltons. Later, MALDI [41] and electrospray ionization (ESI) [42] permitted the direct analysis of native biomolecules within the megadalton masses without derivatization. 

Fuchs, B. and Schiller, 1. 2009. Application of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in lipidomics, Eur J. Lipid Sci. TechnoL, 111 83-98. 

In this chapter, the lipidomics approaches developed based on the electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) technologies (see Chapter 2) are described. Although matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) has played many important roles in lipidomics and is also discussed in the chapter, it is no doubt that the majority of the platforms for lipidomics analysis currently used are based on ESI-MS in conjunction with MS/MS analyses. 

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