Department of Chemistry, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.
Biomolecules. 2024 Jul 3;14(7):790. doi: 10.3390/biom14070790.
The skin surface is an important sample source that the metabolomics community has only just begun to explore. Alterations in sebum, the lipid-rich mixture coating the skin surface, correlate with age, sex, ethnicity, diet, exercise, and disease state, making the skin surface an ideal sample source for future noninvasive biomarker exploration, disease diagnosis, and forensic investigation. The potential of sebum sampling has been realized primarily via electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), an ideal approach to assess the skin surface lipidome. However, a better understanding of sebum collection and subsequent ESI-MS analysis is required before skin surface sampling can be implemented in routine analyses. Challenges include ambiguity in definitive lipid identification, inherent biological variability in sebum production, and methodological, technical variability in analyses. To overcome these obstacles, avoid common pitfalls, and achieve reproducible, robust outcomes, every portion of the workflow-from sample collection to data analysis-should be carefully considered with the specific application in mind. This review details current practices in sebum sampling, sample preparation, ESI-MS data acquisition, and data analysis, and it provides important considerations in acquiring meaningful lipidomic datasets from the skin surface. Forensic researchers investigating sebum as a means for suspect elimination in lieu of adequate fingerprint ridge detail or database matches, as well as clinical researchers interested in noninvasive biomarker exploration, disease diagnosis, and treatment monitoring, can use this review as a guide for developing methods of best-practice.
皮肤表面是代谢组学领域刚刚开始探索的一个重要样本来源。皮脂的变化，即覆盖皮肤表面的富含脂质的混合物，与年龄、性别、种族、饮食、运动和疾病状态相关，这使得皮肤表面成为未来非侵入性生物标志物探索、疾病诊断和法医调查的理想样本来源。皮脂采样的潜力主要通过电喷雾电离质谱（ESI-MS）得以实现，这是评估皮肤表面脂质组学的理想方法。然而，在常规分析中实施皮肤表面采样之前，需要更好地了解皮脂采集和随后的 ESI-MS 分析。挑战包括明确的脂质鉴定存在歧义、皮脂产生的固有生物学变异性以及分析中的方法学和技术变异性。为了克服这些障碍、避免常见陷阱并实现可重复、稳健的结果，应根据具体应用仔细考虑工作流程的每个部分——从样本采集到数据分析。本综述详细介绍了目前的皮脂采样、样品制备、ESI-MS 数据采集和数据分析实践，并提供了从皮肤表面获取有意义的脂质组学数据集的重要考虑因素。对于研究皮脂作为替代充分指纹脊细节或数据库匹配来排除嫌疑人的法医研究人员，以及对非侵入性生物标志物探索、疾病诊断和治疗监测感兴趣的临床研究人员，可以将本综述作为制定最佳实践方法的指南。
