Maceyka Michael, Milstien Sheldon, Spiegel Sarah
Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA 23298, USA.
Prostaglandins Other Lipid Mediat. 2005 Sep;77(1-4):15-22. doi: 10.1016/j.prostaglandins.2004.09.010.
It has become abundantly clear over the past decade that sphingolipids and their metabolites are key signaling molecules. Ceramide, the backbone of all sphingolipids, predominantly inhibits cell growth and induces apoptosis, while its metabolite, sphingosine-1-phosphate promotes growth and survival. Given the interconvertibility of these two opposing signaling molecules, it is essential that any study that examines the effects of one also look at the other. The newly available technology of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS) is increasingly being applied for this purpose, as it can quickly identify and measure many different sphingolipids simultaneously. An added benefit of LC-MS/MS is that it is several orders of magnitude more sensitive than enzymatic methods or more traditional chromatographic techniques, allowing smaller sample sizes and increased throughput. Here, we briefly discuss the importance of LC-MS/MS for measuring sphingolipid metabolites and some future directions researchers may take given the increasingly accessibility to this technology.
在过去十年中，已非常清楚地表明鞘脂及其代谢产物是关键的信号分子。神经酰胺作为所有鞘脂的骨架，主要抑制细胞生长并诱导细胞凋亡，而其代谢产物鞘氨醇-1-磷酸则促进生长和存活。鉴于这两种相反信号分子的相互转化性，任何研究其中一种分子作用的研究也考察另一种分子是至关重要的。液相色谱-串联质谱（LC-MS/MS）这项新出现的技术正越来越多地用于此目的，因为它可以同时快速鉴定和测量许多不同的鞘脂。LC-MS/MS的一个额外优点是它比酶法或更传统的色谱技术灵敏几个数量级，允许使用更小的样本量并提高通量。在此，我们简要讨论LC-MS/MS在测量鞘脂代谢产物方面的重要性以及鉴于该技术越来越容易获得，研究人员可能采取的一些未来方向。
