Quantification of plasma phospholipids by ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

We describe a fast and robust ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method for the quantification of phospholipid (PL) species in EDTA-plasma samples. We quantified total phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), and sphingomyelin (SM) and several species within these classes using one or two external calibrators and one internal standard for each class. Inter-assay coefficients of variation were <10% for the most abundant species and <20% for all quantified PC, LPC, and SM species and the three most abundant PE species. Coefficients of linear regression were R(2) > 0.98. Mean recoveries were between 83% and 123%. The limits of detection were 0.37 μmol/L for PC, 4.02 μmol/L for LPC, 3.75 μmol/L for PE, and 0.86 μmol/L for SM. Quantification was linear over the physiological ranges for PE, LPC, and SM and up to 500 μmol/L for PC. The concentrations of PLs in the plasma of healthy donors yielded results that were comparable with those of previous works.