Lipidomics and Metabolomics Unit

Lipids constitute biological membranes and play various roles as energy sources, signaling molecules, and their precursors. Some lipids are biologically active as single molecules, while others are involved in forming membrane domains as molecular assemblies. In general, the dysregulation of lipid metabolism is associated with human diseases and, hence, the precise determination of lipids is quite important for understanding their functions in physiology and disease, and for discovering novel bioactive lipids that may have therapeutic benefits.

Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is a powerful method for analyzing lipid metabolites. The Lipidomics and Metabolomics Unit is equipped with an AQUITY UPLC (Waters) coupled with a TripleTOF 6600, a QTRAP 6500/5500/4500 (Sciex), and a GC-MS TQ8030 (Shimadzu) to cover untargeted and wide-targeted metabolomics. For spatial lipidomics, we conduct MALDI-MS imaging with a timsTOF flex MALDI-2 (Bruker). This state-of-the-art lipidomics platform together with our original informatics technologies including MS-DIAL are powerful tools for elucidating complex lipid structures and visualizing metabolic networks globally and in an unbiased and provide an opportunity for data-driven hypotheses to make the connection between lipid metabolism and biological phenotypes.