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Lipidomics needs more standardization

Nature Metabolism volume 1, pages 745–747 (2019)Cite this article

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Modern mass spectrometric technologies provide quantitative readouts for a wide variety of lipid specimens. However, many studies do not report absolute lipid concentrations and differ vastly in methodologies, workflows and data presentation. Therefore, we encourage researchers to engage with the Lipidomics Standards Initiative to develop common standards for minimum acceptable data quality and reporting for lipidomics data, to take lipidomics research to the next level.

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Fig. 1: Analytical challenges in lipidomics workflows.

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Acknowledgements

Work in Swansea was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC, grant number BB/N015932/1). Work in Dortmund was supported by the Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, the Regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin - inkl. Wissenschaft und Forschung and the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (de.NBI program code 031L0108A). Work in Regensburg was supported by the European Union’s FP7 programme MyNewGut (grant agreement 613979) and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, LI 923/4-1). Work in Pardubice was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (18-12204S). Work in Japan was supported by MEXT KAKENHI (15H05897) and the NBDC Integration Project. Work in Graz was supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research grant BMWFW-10.420/0005-WF/V/3c/2017. Work in Australia was supported by the Australia Research Council (DP150101715 and DP190101486). Work in Odense was supported by the VILLUM Foundation (VKR023439 and VKR023179). Work in Singapore was supported by grants from the National University of Singapore via the Life Sciences Institute (LSI) and the National Research Foundation (NRFI2015-05 and NRFSBP-P4).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Gerhard Liebisch

  2. Leibniz-Institut für Analytische Wissenschaften-ISAS-e.V., Dortmund, Germany

    Robert Ahrends

  3. Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Robert Ahrends

  4. Laboratory for Metabolomics, RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS), Yokohama, Japan

    Makoto Arita

  5. RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Japan

    Masanori Arita

  6. National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan

    Masanori Arita

  7. Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology, Department of Physiological Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    John A. Bowden

  8. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, VILLUM Center for Bioanalytical Sciences, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

    Christer S. Ejsing

  9. Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany

    Christer S. Ejsing

  10. Swansea University Medical School, Swansea, UK

    William J. Griffiths

  11. Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Pardubice, Pardubice, Czech Republic

    Michal Holčapek

  12. Core Facility Mass Spectrometry and Lipidomics, ZMF, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Harald Köfeler

  13. School of Medicine, Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

    Todd W. Mitchell

  14. Singapore Lipidomics Incubator (SLING), Department of Biochemistry, YLL School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Markus R. Wenk

  15. Lipidomics Consulting Ltd., Esbo, Finland

    Kim Ekroos

Consortia

Lipidomics Standards Initiative Consortium

  • Gerhard Liebisch
  • , Robert Ahrends
  • , Makoto Arita
  • , Masanori Arita
  • , John A. Bowden
  • , Christer S. Ejsing
  • , William J. Griffiths
  • , Michal Holčapek
  • , Harald Köfeler
  • , Todd W. Mitchell
  • , Markus R. Wenk
  •  & Kim Ekroos

Contributions

G.L. and K.E. prepared the manuscript and developed the online tool. J.A.B., W.J.G., R.A., T.W.M., Masanori Arita, Makoto Arita, M.R.W., C.S.E., H.K. and M.H. discussed and contributed to the manuscript and content of the online tool. All authors annotated data and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Gerhard Liebisch or Kim Ekroos.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

K.E. is the owner of Lipidomics Consulting Ltd. The other authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Lipidomics Standards Initiative Consortium. Lipidomics needs more standardization. Nat Metab 1, 745–747 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-019-0094-z

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