Fast atom bombardment tandem mass spectrometric analysis of phospholipids in Drosophila melanogaster

Direct determination of the phospholipid components in adult Drosophila melanogaster was carried out by using fast atom bombardment tandem mass spectrometry (FAB-MS/MS) of both the positive and negative ions. Approximately 50 molecular species were detected, including phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylserine (PS) and phosphatidylinositol (PI). Eight PE, one PC and three PS molecular species were identified. Some variations with age and a few differences among the D. melanogaster strains in the PE and PC molecular species were found. There was a difference in the fatty acid structure of a 741 Da PE molecular species between the wild-types and a mutant strain (EthAR201) which requires a higher concentration of diethylether for anesthesia than the wild-types; in the mutant sn-1-oleoyl-2-linoleoyl (18:1/18:2) but in the wild-types sn-1-linoleoyl-2-oleoyl (18:2/18:1) were speculated. This suggests that this technique will be useful for the screening of phospholipid molecular species mutation.