engleski

Nano-HPLC-MS analysis of phospholipids in cerebrospinal fluid of Alzheimer’s disease patients–a pilot study

There is emerging evidence that lipids play an important role in many neurodegenerative processes such as in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Despite the fact that different lipid alterations in AD brain have been reported, only very few of them investigated lipid changes in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Recent developments in mass spectrometry (MS) have enabled fast and sensitive detection of lipid species in different biological matrixes. In this study we developed an on-line HPLC/MS method for phospholipid profiling in CSF based on nano-HPLC separation using Amide column and detection with electrospray (ESI) quadrupole – time of flight (QTOF) MS. We achieved good separation, reproducibility and sensitivity for monitoring major phospholipid classes in the CSF: phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylinositol (PI) and sphingomyelin (SM). To underline the applicability of the method, a pilot study was performed on a group of CSF samples (N=16) from individuals with probable AD and non-demented controls. We observed statistically significant increase of SM levels (24.3% ± 2.4%) in CSF from probable AD individuals vs. controls. Our findings indicate that the SM levels in the CSF could potentially provide a new lead in AD biomarker research, and show the potential of the method for disease-associated CSF phospholipid screening.

liquid chromatography; mass spectrometry; phospholipids; sphingomyelin; cerebrospinal fluid; Alzheimer’s disease

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