Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry of biofluids and extracts

Abstract

Metabonomics aims at a comprehensive and semiquantitative monitoring of the perturbations of the metabonome in response to pathophysiological stimuli. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is one of the most commonly employed analytical platforms for this purpose. As the sample pretreatment is detailed in the former chapter, we here describe the practical procedures for the LC-MS-based metabolic profiling of biological samples including detailed liquid chromatographic and MS conditions, batch analysis, peak alignment, data quality assessment, and compound identification.