Electron Activated Dissociation (EAD) MS/MS for the Structural Elucidation of Lipids

Lipids play an important role in biological processes, and knowing their exact structure is vital for not only understanding basic concepts in life sciences, but also for applications in the food or pharmaceutical industry. However, most analytical techniques fail to provide full structural elucidation of lipid molecules.

Tandem MS with electron activated dissociation (EAD) could fill this gap. This technique shows different fragmentation patterns even for closely related lipid species, allowing for their unequivocal identification. For instance, sn-positional isomers of some lipid classes produce distinct product ions that cannot be achieved using conventional collision induced dissociation (CID). Moreover, dissociation of acyl chains within lipid analytes produces a characteristic fragment ion series that allows pinpointing the location of double bonds.

By incorporating this technique into a flow injection analysis (FIA) workflow with an on-line enzymatic digest, it is possible to simultaneously obtain kinetic information on the conversion and structural information on substrate and products in real time. Clearly, EAD provides added value over other fragmentation techniques for the characterization of lipids and it is expected that this powerful technique will prove useful for many more applications in the near future.

By attending this webinar you will:

• gain a basic understanding of using electron activated dissociation in MS/MS analysis for structural elucidation of lipids
• learn how EAD can distinguish structural isomers of various lipid classes and how this powerful technique adds value over other fragmentation techniques

Presenter: Sophia Laposchan (Technical University of Munich, Germany)