Atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry for analysis of lipids

Atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) mass spectrometry (MS) has proven to be a very valuable technique for analysis of lipids from a variety of classes. This instrumental method readily produces useful ions with gentle fragmentation from large neutral molecules such as triacylglycerols and carotenoids, which are often difficult to analyze using other techniques. Molecules that are easily ionized, such as phospholipids, produce molecular ions and diagnostically useful fragment ions that are complementary to those produced by methods such as electrospray ionization MS with collision-induced dissociation. The simplicity and versatility of APCI-MS make it an ideal tool for use in solving hitherto very difficult analytical problems.