CHAPTER 10: New Scans and Resources in Lipidomics

In the 1970s and 1980s, lipidomics existed but under the guise of “metabolite profiling”, largely performed on gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (GC-MS) instruments or using fast atom bombardment (FAB) ionisation on high-resolution magnetic sector MS instruments. Today, lipidomics has become a field of study in its own right with electrospray as the dominating ionisation mode, i.e. ESI-MS, often linked with online chromatographic separation and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). In this chapter we will discuss some of the newer scan modes available on modern instruments made possible by fast scanning and high-resolution with accurate mass measurement.