Simple enrichment and analysis of plasma lysophosphatidic acids.

A simple and highly efficient technique for the analysis of lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) subspecies in human plasma is described. The streamlined sample preparation protocol furnishes the five major LPA subspecies with excellent recoveries. Extensive analysis of the enriched sample reveals only trace levels of other phospholipids. This level of purity not only improves MS analyses, but enables HPLC post-column detection in the visible region with a commercially available fluorescent phospholipids probe. Human plasma samples from different donors were analyzed using the above method and validated by LC-ESI/MS/MS.