Shotgun lipidomics

In lipidomics, the process of shotgun lipidomics (named by analogy with shotgun sequencing uses analytical chemistry to investigate the biological function, significance, and sequelae of alterations in lipids and protein constituents mediating lipid metabolism, trafficking, or biological function in cells. Lipidomics has been greatly facilitated by recent advances in, and novel applications of, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI/MS).

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History

Shotgun lipidomics was developed by Richard W. Gross, MD, PhD, and Xianlin Han, PhD., by employing ESI intrasource separation techniques. Individual molecular species of most major and many minor lipid classes can be fingerprinted and quantitated directly from biological lipid extracts without the need for chromatographic purification.

Advantages

Shotgun lipidomics is fast, highly sensitive, and it can identify hundreds of lipids missed by other methods — all with a much smaller tissue sample so that specific cells or minute biopsy samples can be examined.

Further reading

review

References

Gunning for fats

Shotgun lipidomics of phosphoethanolamine-containing lipids in biological samples after one-step in situ derivatization