Development of a Novel Technology for Analyzing Complex Fatty Acid Structures

April 7, 2025

Lipidomics technology for capturing the diversity of fatty acid metabolism

A collaborative research group consisting of researchers from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, the RIKEN CSRS, and the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences has developed a novel structural lipidomics approach that enables comprehensive determination of the fatty acid side chains, hydroxylation positions, and double bond locations of ‘fatty acid esters of hydroxy fatty acids’ (FAHFAs), a class of bioactive lipids.

This technique was achieved through advancements and optimization in sample pretreatment for biological specimens in liquid chromatography/ tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), the application of electron-activated dissociation (EAD) to obtain substructure information, and informatics technologies. Using this method, the researchers successfully captured the diversity of 85 FAHFA metabolites predicted to be produced by the gut microbiota and the host, and identified several FAHFAs that vary with aging. This method enables the simultaneous detection of not only FAHFAs but also their precursor fatty acids and hydroxy fatty acids, and is therefore expected to facilitate the discovery of novel fatty acid metabolite structures and the elucidation of their biological functions.

 

Original article

Analytical Chemistry　doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.4c06736

Y. Kurizaki, Y. Matsuzawa, M. Takahashi, H. Takeda, M. Hasegawa, M. Arita, J. Miyamoto, H. Tsugawa,

"Data-Independent Acquisition Coupled with Electron-Activated Dissociation for In-Depth Structure Elucidation of the Fatty Acid Ester of Hydroxy Fatty Acids".

Contact

Tsugawa Hiroshi; Visiting Scientist
Mikiko Takahashi; Technical Staff
Metabolome Informatics Research Team