Simple,Rapid Lipidomic Analysis of Triacylglycerols in Bovine Milk by Infusion-Electrospray Mass Spectrometry

Bovine milk is a complex mixture of lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, and other factors of which lipids comprise 3–5% of the total mass. Rapid analysis and characterization of the triacylglycerols (TAG) that comprise about 95% of the total lipid is daunting given the numerous TAG species. In the attached methods paper, we demonstrate an improved method for identifying and quantifying TAG species by infusion-based “shotgun” lipidomics. Because of the broad range of TAG species in milk, a single internal standard was insufficient for the analysis and required sectioning the spectrum into three portions based upon mass range to provide accurate quantitation of TAG species. Isobaric phospholipid interferences were removed using a simple dispersive solid-phase extraction step. Using this method, > 100 TAG species were quantitated by acyl carbon number and desaturation level in a sample of commercially purchased bovine milk.