半自动脂质提取方案

Automated protocols to facilitate sample preparation in lipidomics have been previously developed. The aim of these procedures is to minimize human errors resulting from handling large quantities of samples, and to decrease the amount of time spent in sample preparation. This application note describes the semi-automated extraction of phospholipids and sphingolipids from human plasma using the Agilent Bravo Automated Liquid Handling Platform. This procedure includes the transfer of the starting material (plasma is usually delivered in 1.5-mL tubes) to 96-well plates, which can be either stored or used for the lipid extraction. In the latter case, a butanol/methanol (BuMe) mixture is added to the sample. Although the samples are still transferred manually to the sonicator and the centrifuge during the lipid extraction procedure, the reported protocol allows a high number of samples to be processed uniformly, decreasing the sample preparation time and yielding high reproducibility according to the results obtained after analysis of the extracted lipids with an Agilent UHPLC/MS/MS system.