The analysis of triacylglycerols and phospholipids - phosphatidylcholines allowed the use of shotgun lipidomics to identify very long-chain fatty acids and very long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in microalgae. These fatty acids were determined in triacylglycerols by positive electrospray ionization of neutral loss scans of different fatty acids, e.g. 24:0, 24:1ω9, 24:6ω3, 26:0, 26:1ω9, 28:0, 28:1ω9, 28:2ω6, and 28:8ω3. Likewise, very long-chain fatty acids in phosphatidylcholines were identified by negative electrospray ionization mass spectrometry in the selected ion-monitoring of the two most important ions (R1COO- and R2COO-). The limit of detection was determined at 10 nmol/L (∼11 pg/μL) in triacylglycerols and 8.6 nmoles/L (∼8 pg/μL) in phosphatidylcholines. The use of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry is suitable for very long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids with up to 8 double bonds due to the time of analysis as well as for reasons of lower thermal stability of polyunsaturated fatty acids towards saturated fatty acids, but gas chromatography-mass spectrometry is better suited for the analysis of saturated very long-chain fatty acids.
Keywords: GC–MS; High resolution tandem mass spectrometry; LC–MS; Very long-chain fatty acids; Very long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.
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