Micelle to solvent stacking of organic cations in capillary zone electrophoresis with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

The direction of the effective electrophoretic mobility of small organic cations in micellar electrokinetic chromatography using sodium dodecyl sulphate in a low-pH electrolyte can be reversed in the presence of organic solvent. This effective electrophoretic mobility change is presented here as a new dimension for on-line sample preconcentration of cations in capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) using a background solution (BGS) modified by an organic solvent. The sample is prepared in a micellar solution without organic solvent. The focusing effect relies on the reversal in the effective electrophoretic mobility at the boundary zone between the micellar matrix and the BGS modified with organic solvent. This on-line sample preconcentration technique, called micelle to solvent stacking (MSS) afforded more than an order of magnitude improvement in concentration sensitivity compared to typical CZE-UV or CZE-electrospray ionization (ESI) MS analysis. The calculated limit of detection (S/N = 3) for pindolol and metoprolol analysed by MSS-CZE-ESI-MS was found to be 0.03 and 0.01 μg/mL, respectively.     

Coupling of capillary electrophoresis with electrospray ionization multiplexing ion mobility spectrometry

In this work, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) function as a detector and another dimension of separation was coupled with CE to achieve two‐dimensional separation. To improve the performance of hyphenated CE‐IMS instrument, electrospray ionization correlation ion mobility spectrometry is evaluated and compared with traditional signal averaging data acquisition method using tetraalkylammonium bromide compounds. The effect of various parameters on the separation including sample introduction, sheath fluid of CE and drift gas, data acquisition method of IMS were investigated. The experimental result shows that the optimal conditions are as follows: hydrodynamic sample injection method, the electrophoresis voltage is 10 kilo volts, 5 mmol/L ammonium acetate buffer solution containing 80% acetonitrile as both the background electrolyte and the electrospray ionization sheath fluid, the ESI liquid flow rate is 4.5 μL/min, the drift voltage is 10.5 kilo volts, the drift gas temperature is 383 K and the drift gas flow rate is 300 mL/min. Under the above conditions, the mixture standards of seven tetraalkylammoniums can be completely separated within 10 min both by CE and IMS. The linear range was 5–250 μg/mL, with LOD of 0.152, 0.204, 0.277, 0.382, 0.466, 0.623 and 0.892 μg/mL, respectively. Compared with traditional capillary electrophoresis detection methods, the developed CE‐ESI‐IMS method not only provide two sets of qualitative parameters including electrophoresis migration time and ion drift time, ion mobility spectrometer can also provide an additional dimension of separation and could apply to the detection ultra‐violet transparent compounds or none fluorescent compounds.     

Confirmation of vanadium complex formation using electrospray mass spectrometry and determination of vanadium speciation by sample stacking capillary electrophoresis

Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) with UV detection was used to determine vanadium species. Nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), hydroxyethylethylenediaminetriacetic acid (HEDTA), ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA), ethylene glycol-bis(2-aminoethylether)-tetraacetic acid (EGTA) and 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid (PDCA) were investigated to determine whether these ligands formed stable anionic complexes with vanadium. Of all the ligands studied HEDTA was the most suitable ligand because it gave the largest UV response with reasonable migration time. Electrospray mass spectrometry (ES-MS) was used to confirm the formation of [VO₂(HEDTA)]²⁻ and [VO(HEDTA)]¹⁻ in solution. An electrolyte containing 25 mM phosphate, 0.25 mM tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide (TTAB) at pH 5.5 was optimum for the separation of these anionic vanadium complexes. Sample stacking techniques, including large-volume sample stacking (LVSS) and field-amplified sample injection (FASI), were tested to improve the sensitivity. Best sensitivity was obtained using FASI, with detection limits of 0.001 μM, equivalent to 0.4 μg L⁻¹, for [VO₂(HEDTA)]²⁻ and 0.01 μM, equivalent to 3.4 μg L⁻¹ for [VO(HEDTA)]¹⁻. The utility of the method for the speciation of V(IV) and V(V) was demonstrated using ground water samples.     

A capillary electrophoresis system with dual capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection and electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

A commercial system that is comprised of a CE coupled to an ESI triple quadrupole mass spectrometer was equipped with two capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detectors (C⁴Ds). The first C⁴D was positioned inside the original cartridge, and the second C⁴D was positioned as close as possible to the ESI probe entrance by using a 3D‐printed support. The C⁴Ds electropherograms were matched to the ESI‐MS electropherogram by correcting their timescales by the factor L_T/L_D, where L_T and L_D are the total capillary length and the length until the C⁴D, respectively. A general approach for method development supporting the simultaneous conductivity and MS detection is discussed, while application examples are introduced. These examples include the use of C⁴D as a simple device that dismiss the use of an EOF marker, a low‐selectivity detector that continuously provide information about unexpected features of the sample, and even a detector that can be more sensitive than ESI‐MS. The C⁴D used in this setup proved to have a smaller contribution to the peak broadening than ESI‐MS, which allowed that a C⁴D, positioned at 12 cm from the inlet of an 80‐cm‐long capillary, could be used to foresee position and shape of the peaks being formed 6.8 times slower at the ESI‐MS electropherogram.     

Arsenic speciation by coupling capillary zone electrophoresis with mass spectrometry

Summary Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) has been coupled with mass spectrometry to enable the identification of mineral and organometallic compounds of arsenic in speciation studies. The electrophoretic effluent was introduced through a concentric interface into the mass spectrometer. Make-up liquid was added to enable electric contact at the outlet of the separation capillary and to assist the electronebulization process. After ionization, the ions were analyzed and quantified with an ion-trap detector. Optimization of the coupling conditions (geometry of the concentric interface, composition and flow rate of the sheath liquid, electronebulization and detection conditions) is described. The results show that the geometry of the concentric interface and the positioning of the outlet of the separation capillary have a critical effect on stability and sensitivity. Programming the electronebulization and detection conditions throughout the analysis enabled identification and quantification of the seven arsenic compounds of interest (neutral, and positively or negatively charged species) in less than 20 min at the ppm level. Limits of detection ranged from 0.5 to 3.3 mg L⁻¹, corresponding to amounts injected ranging from 15 to 60 pg. The linear dependence of mass spectrometric response on arsenic concentration was verified for concentrations ranging from 5 to 200 mgL⁻¹. For the two positively charged species, arsenobetaine and arsenocholine, an on-line preconcentration technique (field-amplified sample injection) enabled reduction of the detection limits by approximately one order of magnitude to 110 and 160 μgL⁻¹, respectively.     

Analysis of microcystins by capillary zone electrophoresis coupling with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

In this paper, a rapid and effective method based on capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) was established for the trace analysis of microcystin (MC) isomers in crude algae sample. The experimental conditions including the composition, acidity and concentration of buffer, separation voltage, injection time, and MS detection parameters were investigated in detail. A capillary separation system was as follows: a uncoated fused-silica capillary tube (50 μm i.d. × 90 cm), 40 mmol L⁻¹ ammonium acetate solution (pH 9.86) as running buffer, 25 kV as separation voltage, 20 kV × 3 s water first and 20 kV × 20 s for sample injection. Mass analysis was performed in ESI source, with sheath gas temperature 150 °C, sheath gas pressure 10 psi, and sheath gas flow 6 L min⁻¹. And sheath liquid was 7.5 mmol L⁻¹ acetic acid in 50% isopropanol-water (3 μL min⁻¹). Protonation and ammonium adduct molecular ions m/z 506.9 (MC-LR) and 532.0 (MC-YR) were used for the quantification of MCs. Under these conditions, two MCs were baseline separated within 9 min, the calibration curves were obtained in the range of 0.11-10.0 μg mL⁻¹ and 0.16-10.5 μg mL⁻¹ for MC-LR and MC-YR, respectively. Meanwhile, limits of detection were 0.05 and 0.08 μg mL⁻¹ for MC-LR and MC-YR, respectively. The recoveries for the two MCs were in the range of 95.8-108%. The developed approach had been successfully applied to the analysis of MCs in crude algae samples.     

Analysis of therapeutic peptides in human urine by combination of capillary zone electrophoresis-electrospray mass spectrometry with preparative capillary isotachophoresis sample pretreatment

The presented study deals with the off-line coupling of preparative isotachophoresis (pITP) with on-line combination of capillary zone electrophoresis with electrospray mass spectrometric detection (CZE-ESI-MS) used for the analysis of therapeutic peptides (anserine, carnosine, and buserelin) in complex matrix (urine). Preparative capillary isotachophoresis, operating in a discontinuous fractionation mode in column-coupling configuration, served as a sample pretreatment technique to separation, and fractionation of mixture of therapeutic peptides present in urine at low concentration level. The fractions isolated by pITP procedure were subsequently analyzed by capillary zone electrophoresis with electrospray mass spectrometric detection. Acetic acid at 200 mmol L(-1) concentration served as background electrolyte in CZE stage and it is compatible with MS detection in positive ionization mode. In pITP fractionation procedure, sodium cation (10 mmol L(-1) concentration) as leading ion and beta-alanine as terminating ion (20 mmol L(-1) concentration) were used. While using CZE-ESI-MS, the limits of detection were 0.18 μg mL(-1) for carnosine, 0.17 μg mL(-1) for anserine and 0.64 μg mL(-1) for buserelin in water and 0.19 μg mL(-1) for carnosine, 0.50 μg mL(-1) for anserine and 0.74 μg mL(-1) for buserelin in 10 times diluted urine, respectively. The cleaning power of pITP sample pretreatment was proved as the peptides provided the higher MS signals at lower concentration levels resulting from the minimized matrix effects. The quality of obtained MS/MS spectra was very good so that they can provide information about the structure of analytes, and they were used for verification of the analytes identities. The pITP pretreatment improved the detection limits of the analyzed therapeutic peptides at least 25 times compared to the CZE-ESI-MS itself.     

Capillary electrophoresis inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Chemical speciation (extraction of elemental information and identification of molecular environment for an analyte in a complex sample) has been a long sought after goal for analytical chemists. Recently, because of successful developments in more sensitive element-specific detectors and gentle separation schemes, which preserve the true chemical information in a real sample, routine speciation experiments are becoming a common occurrence in the scientific literature. For many reasons, the combination of capillary electrophoresis (for separation of different chemical species) with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (for element and isotope specific detection) has emerged as the method of choice for these analyses. In this article the basic principles of capillary electrophoresis inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry are discussed. Design consideration for instrument interface, anticipated difficulties with speciation experiments and applications for specific matrices and analytes are also presented in this article.     

Quantification of phosphorus in DNA using capillary electrophoresis hyphenated with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

We have analyzed phosphorus in an enzymatically digested DNA molecule using capillary electrophoresis (CE) hyphenated with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The DNA concentration was quantified by the phosphorus value obtained in the CE-ICP-MS analysis. The CE-ICP-MS measurement, for which the interface device AIF-01 equipped three layered nebulizer was adopted, was achieved with limited μL/min nebulizing without loss of sample in the vaporizing chamber. The samples of nucleotides and free phosphate were separated well in the CE-ICP-MS measurement, and the calibration curve (0.1-10μg/mL) of the phosphorus showed a linear (R(2)=0.999) increase in intensity. After digestion of the 100-bp double-strand DNA sample to deoxyribonucleotide-5'-monophosphates (dNMPs) by phosphodiesterase-I, phosphorus was detected by CE-ICP-MS without further purification steps. In this study, we applied two calculation schemes of DNA analysis using a dNMP concentration obtained from CE-ICP-MS. Comparative CE-ICP-MS analysis with DNA digested to dNMPs showed that the assay gave an equal value obtained from the total DNA quantification using fluorescence detection. The detection limits of the DNA sample obtained from these species and phosphorus in nucleotides using CE-ICP-MS were 3.1-26ng/mL. These LOD values were equal to the conventional fluorescence determination of DNA.     

Monomer surface modifications for rapid peptide analysis by capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography coupled to electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry

In this study, positively charged alkylaminosilyl monomers were used to modify the inner surface of fused silica capillaries, which subsequently were employed in capillary electrophoresis (CE) and capillary electrochromatography (CEC). The obtained surfaces yield a reversed electroosmotic flow (EOF) and have varying carbon chain lengths, that interact with the analytes and give chromatographic retention. The coating procedure is very simple and fast. The performance of the modified capillaries was evaluated regarding pH influence on EOF and chromatographic interactions. The experiments were conducted with UV and mass spectrometry (MS) and applied to the separation of various neuropeptides. The derivatized surfaces showed a linear (R(2) approximately 0.99) pH dependence with isoelectric points (pI) at 8.6-8.8. Rapid separations of peptide standards and a protein digest with efficiencies as high as 5 x 10(5) plates/m were performed.     

Identification of anthraquinone coloring matters in natural red dyes by electrospray mass spectrometry coupled to capillary electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis with UV/visible diode-array detection (DAD) and electrospray mass spectrometric (ESI-MS) detection were used for the identification of anthraquinone color components of cochineal, lac-dye and madder, natural red dyestuffs often used by ancient painters. For the purpose of such analysis, ESI-MS was found to be a much more appropriate detection technique than DAD one owing to its higher sensitivity (detection limits in the range 0.1-0.5 micro g ml(-1)) and selectivity. The method developed made it possible to identify unequivocally carminic acid and laccaic acids A, B and E as coloring matters in the examined preparations of cochineal and lac-dye, respectively. In madder, European Rubia tinctorum, alizarin and purpurin were found. The method allows the rapid, direct and straightforward identification and quantification of components of natural products used in art and could be very helpful in restoration and conservation procedures.     

Separation techniques hyphenated to electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry in proteomics: capillary electrophoresis versus nanoliquid chromatography

Liquid chromatography (LC) nanoelectrospray-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is a key technology for the study of proteomics, with the main benefit to the characterization of sensitive peptides from complex mixtures. Capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) has been taken into consideration sporadically due to the highly efficient separation and ability to handle low sample amount, yet classified as being less sensitive with respect to analyte concentration. The limitation in capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) injection volumes can be overcome by on-line solid-phase extraction (SPE). Such an on-line SPE-CZE system was explored in combination with an ion trap (IT) mass spectrometer. Thus, it was possible to inject more than 100 microL sample solution on to the CZE capillary. Concentration limits of detection as low as 100 amol/microL were demonstrated for a peptide standard. This SPE-CZE-microelectrospray ionization (ESI)-MS/MS setup was compared directly to nanoLC/nanoESI using the same sample of a tryptic digest of bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a reference standard. Measurements were made on one IT mass spectrometer with identical acquisition parameters. Both chromatography systems enabled the separation and detection of low levels of peptides from a mixture of moderate complexity, with most peptides identified using both techniques; however, specific differences were obvious. The nanoLC-MS is about five times more sensitive than the CZE-MS, yet the difference was less pronounced than expected. The CZE-MS technique showed reduced loss of peptides, especially for larger peptides (missed cleavages) and is about four times faster than the nanoLC-MS approach.     

Copper-coated microsprayer interface for on-line sheathless capillary electrophoresis electrospray mass spectrometry of carbohydrates

A sturdy home-built sheathless CE/ESI-QTOF-MS system was developed and optimized for carbohydrate analysis. The interface and employed methodology provided a simple analytical solution to laborious CE/MS interfacing methods and to problems in characterization of complex carbohydrate mixtures that require high-resolution separation of the components. The CE/ESI interface, feasible in any MS laboratory, consists of a one-piece CE column having the CE terminus in-laboratory shaped as a microsprayer and coated with copper. The CE microsprayer was inserted into an in-house made stainless steel clenching device and the whole assembly was mounted onto a quadrupole TOF mass spectrometer. The analytical potential of the interface in terms of suitability, microsprayer performance, copper coat durability, ionization efficiency, spray stability, and sensitivity was tested first on a simple mixture of standard saccharides, which were separated, resolved, and detected with high separation efficiency. The approach was next assessed for the screening of a biological sample, a complex mixture of O-glycosylated sialylated amino acids from urine of a patient suffering from Schindler disease. Preliminary data allow this method to be considered as one of general applicability in structural glycobiology and glycomics and easy to be implemented for proteomic surveys as well.     

Influence of one- and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis procedure on metal-protein bindings examined by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, and ultrafiltration

Three independent methods, (i) electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), (ii) carrying out the complete protein preparation procedure required for protein gel electrophoresis (GE) including extraction, precipitation, washing, and desalting with subsequent microwave digestion of the produced protein fractions for metal content quantification, and (iii) ultrafiltration for separating protein-bound and unbound metal fractions, were employed to elucidate the influences of protein sample preparation and GE running conditions on metal-protein bindings. A treatment of the protein solution with acetone instead of trichloroacetic acid or ammonium sulfate for precipitate formation led to a strongly enhanced metal binding capacity. The desalting step of the resolubilized protein sample caused a metal loss between 10 and 35%. The omission of some extraction buffer additives led to a diminished metal binding capacity of protein fractions obtained from the sample preparation procedure for GE, whereas a tenside addition to the protein solution inhibited metal-protein bindings. The binding stoichiometry of Cu and Zn-protein complexes determined by ESI-MS was influenced by the type of the metal salt which was applied to the protein solution. A higher pH value of the sample solution promoted the metal ion complexation by the proteins. Ultrafiltration experiments revealed a higher Cu- and Zn-binding capacity of the model protein lysozyme in both resolubilization buffers for 1D- and 2D-GE compared to the protein extraction buffer. Strongly diminished metal binding capacities of lysozyme were recorded in the running buffer of 1D-GE and in the gel staining solutions.     

Determination of urinary androgen glucuronides by capillary electrophoresis with electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

Capillary electrophoresis–electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (CE‐ESI/MS/MS) is a simple and highly sensitive method for quantifying seven urinary androgen glucuronides. The urine samples were diluted and filtered through a membrane filter, and the filtrate was injected into a CE‐MS/MS system without further sample preparation steps such as extraction and derivatization. The calibration ranges were 0.01–5 µg/mL for glucuronides of androsterone and 11β‐OHAn‐3G, and 5–500 ng/mL for glucuronides of 11‐ketoAn, DHEA, testosterone, epitestosterone and DHT. The linearity of the method was 0.992–0.998, and the limits‐of‐detection at a signal‐to‐noise ratio of 3 were 5–10 ng/mL. The coefficients of variation were in the range of 4.0–9.0% for intra‐day assay and 4.1–9.8% for inter‐day assay. The proposed method may be applicable to metabolic profiling in both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determination of perchlorate in river by ion-pair hollow-fiber liquid-phase microextraction coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

This paper describes the analysis of perchlorate (ClO₄⁻) in surface water samples by a rapid and reliable ion-pair hollow-fiber liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME) method coupled with flow-injection electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS-MS) technique. The effects of the type and concentration of ion-pairing reagents, extraction time, temperature and pH value on the quantitative extraction of perchlorate by ion-pair HF-LPME were investigated and optimized. Di-n-hexyl ammonium acetate (DHAA) was employed to form an extractable ion-pair complex with aqueous perchlorate. The characteristic ions [ClO₄-ClO₄-DHA]⁻ at m/z 384.6 and 386.7 were observed in the ESI negative-ionization mode. The predominant product ions [ClO₄]⁻ at m/z 99 and 101 were used for quantitation and to maximize the detection selectivity and sensitivity. The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.5 μg/L. The reliability and precision of the standard addition method of ion-pair HF-LPME for the determination of trace levels of perchlorate in surface water were demonstrated.     

Plasma lipid analysis by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

A novel method for the analysis of endogenous lipids and related compounds was developed employing hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. A hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography with carbamoyl stationary phase achieved clear separation of phosphatidylcholine, lysophosphatidylcholine, sphingomyelin, ceramide, and mono‐hexsosyl ceramide groups with good peak area repeatability (RSD% < 10) and linearity (R² > 0.99). The established method was applied to human plasma assays and a total of 117 endogenous lipids were successfully detected and reproducibly identified. In addition, we investigated the simultaneous detection of small polar metabolites such as amino and organic acids co‐existing in the same biological samples processed in a single analytical run with lipids. Our results show that hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography is a useful tool for human plasma lipidome analysis and offers more comprehensive metabolome coverage.     

A generic approach to the impurity profiling of drugs using standardised and independent capillary zone electrophoresis methods coupled to electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry

Three standardised, capillary zone electrophoresis-electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (CZE-ESI-MS) methods were developed for the analysis of six drug candidates and their respective process-related impurities comprising a total of 22 analytes with a range of functional groups and lipophilicities. The selected background electrolyte conditions were found to be: 60/40 v/v 10 mM ammonium formate pH 3.5/organic, 60/40 v/v 10 mM ammonium acetate pH 7.0/organic and 10 mM piperidine, pH 10.5, where the organic solvent is 50/50 v/v methanol/acetonitrile. The coaxial sheath flow consisted of either 0.1% v/v formic acid in 50/50 v/v methanol/water, or 10 mM ammonium acetate in 50/50 v/v methanol/water, depending on the mixture being analysed. Factor analysis and informational theory were used to quantify the orthogonality of the methods and predict their complementarities. The three selected CZE-ESI-MS methods allowed the identification of 21 out of 22 of all the drug candidates and their process-related impurities and provided orthogonality with four established high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) methods. These methodologies therefore form the basis of a generic approach to impurity profiling of pharmaceutical drug candidates and can be applied with little or no analytical method development, thereby offering significant resource and time savings.     

A new interface used to couple capillary electrophoresis with an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for speciation analysis

In this work, a novel and high-efficiency interface has been developed in coupling CE with inductively coupled plasma MS (ICPMS). The interface completely avoids laminar flow in CE capillary caused by the suction of nebulizer, and can be easily and stably operated at room temperature with high analyte transport efficiency to ICPMS. The new interface has a liquid dead volume smaller than 5 nL, which was much smaller than those (65-2500 microL) reported previously for other interfaces. All above features led to a higher sensitivity and a better electrophoretic resolution for CE-ICPMS coupled with this new interface. With the help of this new interface, we have successfully separated and determined five species of arsenic, As(III), As(V), monomethylarsonic acid, dimethylarsinic acid and p-aminophenylarsonic acid using CE-ICPMS within 11 min with a detection limit of 0.046-0.075 ng/mL and an RSD of 2-6% (n=6).     

Separation and identification of ceramides in the human stratum corneum by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and electrospray multiple-stage mass spectrometry profiling

Summary A sensitive, selective, and rapid method is described for analysis of ceramides in the human stratum coracum by direct coupling of HPLC with an electrospray ion-trap mass spectrometry. Nonaqueous reversed-phase chromatography stabilizes the electrospray ionization, resulting in sensitivity that enables direct measurement of skin lipid extracts with no special sample preparation. Assignment of individual signals to the corresponding ceramide species is based on interpretation of the fragment spectra from MS-MS experiments. This enables much finer differentiation between ceramdies than that achievable by thin-layer chromatography. Summary A sensitive, selective, and rapid method is described for analysis of ceramides in the human stratum corneum by direct coupling of HPLC with an electrospray ion-trap mass spectrometry. Nonaqueous reversed-phase chromatography stabilizes the electrospray ionization, resulting in sensitivity that enables direct measurement of skin lipid extracts with no special sample preparation. Assignment of individual signals to the corresponding ceramide species is based on interpretation of the fragment spectra from MS-MS experiments. This enables much finer differentiation between ceramides than that achievable by thin-layer chromatography.