Comparative high-speed profiling of carboxylic acid metabolite levels by differential isotope-coded MALDI mass spectrometry

Abstract

This present work describes the development of a novel high throughput comparative matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry profiling technique for endogenous compounds using a new isotopecoded label for relative quantitation of carboxylic acids. The key new aspect of this technique was a differential label, 3-hydroxymethyl-1- ethylpyrididinium iodide (HMEP), designed specifically for simultaneous quantitative MALDI analysis of two physiological states. The HMEP-d0 and HMEP-d5 variants of the label were applied to profiling endogenous fatty acid levels during a fish oil intervention study, using the metabolite profile of every individual person in the study as th..