On January 11, Fong-Fu Hsu, PhD and collaborator Hay-Yan J. Wang, had their research paper titled “Structural characterization of phospholipids and sphingolipids by in-source fragmentation MALDI/TOF mass spectrometry,” published in “Springer Nature.”
The study aimed characterize the structure of phospholipids (PLs) and sphingolipids (SLs), which perform essential biological and structural cell functions and are important in decoding lipid biology.
Hsu and Wang present a simple in-source fragmentation method (ISF), MALDI/TOF mass spectrometry, which characterizes the molecular structure of these lipids.
Throughout their research, they found that “the identities of the exemplary product ions from vinylic, allylic, and double-bond cleavages were verified by LIFT-TOF/TOF,” and that “identification of individual PL species in the lipid mixture was carried out with ISF-MALDI/TOF.”
In conclusion, the ISF method, MALDI/TOF mass spectrometry, proved to be a simple and effective approach to identifying and characterizing PLs and SLS without needing instrument hardware modifications.