High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry in the Analysis of Phospholipid Species from Serum and Mononuclear Cells of Cystic Fibrosis patients

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease characterized by abnormal levels of essential fatty acids (EFA) in plasma and tissue phospholipids. Linoleic acid (LA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) have been reported to be lower and palmitoleic acid (POA) higher in CF patients than healthy subjects. Other than fat malabsorption , altered desaturase activity, increased oxidation of fatty acids and increased production of eicosanoids were claimed to be causes of the fatty acid abnormalities. In the present study we have exploited the utility of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry to determine the phospholipid molecular species (PMS) in CF patients. The PMS composition of phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylinositol (PI), Sphingomyelin (Sph) and Lyso-phosphatidylcholine (LPC) in serum and mononuclear cells from CF patients and normal subjects was compared. Moreover, the serum PMS composition of CF before and after one-month supplementation with docosahexaenoic acid was studied. The present analytical method allows complete determination of PMS from the total lipid extracts and can be a useful analytical support for clinical interventions aimed to correct the fatty acid abnormalities seen in CF patients.