Supercritical fluid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry - A metabolomics perspective

Metabolomics as a global analysis of a large number of cellular metabolites relies heavily on the new developments in separation science and technology. None of the existing analytical techniques can simultaneously separate and measure all the cellular metabolites due to complexity of cellular metabolome and, therefore, a combination of analytical techniques must be used. Currently NMR, GC-MS and LC-MS are most often used in metabolomics. Novel separation methods such as supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), which can increase metabolome coverage while decreasing cost and analysis time, can provide alternative to other analytical techniques. As a result of major improvements in instrumentation and development of a new diverse column chemistries SFC-MS is increasingly used in a variety of biomedical applications and is becoming an attractive compliment to other major analytical platforms in metabolomics. Despite its potential and advantages, SFC-MS application in metabolomics is limited. Here we provide a brief overview of the latest developments of SFC-MS for metabolomics applications.