Separation techniques
High performance liquid chromatography and ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometric detection are extremely powerful tools for metabolomics. Chromatography reduces the complexity of the sample’s metabolite mixture, allowing the detection of low-abundant metabolites while additionally gaining identification confirmation via the compounds’ retention time.
In the Koellensperger group, we are specifically interested in developing novel multidimensional chromatographic workflows for the analysis of hydrophilic metabolites and lipids. Recent works include the online combination of reversed-phase and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography to merge metabolomics and lipidomics in one chromatographic run, using two high pressure binary pumps and an autosampler with two injection ports. Most recent investigation focuses on nano-flow separations for derivatized metabolites.
Current topics:
- Nano-flow liquid chromatography separation of derivatized metabolites
- Merging metabolomics and lipidomics