Nontargeted lipidomic characterization of porcine organs using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography and off-line two-dimensional liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.

Lipids form a significant part of animal organs and they are responsible for important biological functions, such as semi-permeability and fluidity of membranes, signaling activity, anti-inflammatory processes, etc. We have performed a comprehensive nontargeted lipidomic characterization of porcine brain, heart, kidney, liver, lung, spinal cord, spleen, and stomach using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) coupled to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI/MS) to describe the representation of individual lipid classes in these organs. Detailed information on identified lipid species inside classes are obtained based on relative abundances of deprotonated molecules M-H in the negative-ion ESI mass spectra, which provides important knowledge on phosphatidylethanolamines and their different forms of fatty acyl linkage (ethers and plasmalogens), phosphatidylinositols, and hexosylceramides containing nonhydroxy- and hydroxy-fatty acyls. The detailed analysis of identified lipid classes using reversed-phase liquid chromatography in the second dimension was performed for porcine brain to determine more than 160 individual lipid species containing attached fatty acyls of different acyl chain length, double-bond number, and positions on the glycerol skeleton. The fatty acid composition of porcine organs is determined by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection after the transesterification with sodium methoxide.