A clean-up technology for the simultaneous determination of lysophosphatidic acid and sphingosine-1-phosphate by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry using a phosphate-capture molecule, Phos-tag.

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) and sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) are growth factor-like lipids having a phosphate group. The concentrations of these mediator lipids in blood are considered to be potential biomarkers for early detection of cancer or vascular diseases. Here, we report a method for simultaneous determination of LPA and S1P using Phos-tag, a zinc complex that specifically binds to a phosphate-monoester group. Although both LPA and S1P are hydrophilic compounds, we found that they acquire hydrophobic properties when they form complexes with Phos-tag. Based on this finding, we developed a method for the enrichment of LPA and S1P from biological samples. The first partition in a two-phase solvent system consisting of chloroform/methanol/water (1:1:0.9, v/v/v) is conducted for the removal of lipids. LPA and S1P are specifically extracted as Phos-tag complexes at the second partition by adding Phos-tag. The Phos-tag complexes of LPA and S1P are detectable by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOFMS) and quantifiable based on the relative intensities of ions using 17:0 LPA and C17 S1P as internal standards. The protocol was validated by analyses of these mediator lipids in calf serum, a rat brain and a lung. The clean-up protocol is rapid, requires neither thin-layer chromatography (TLC) nor liquid chromatography (LC), and is applicable to both blood and solid tissue samples. We believe that our protocol will be useful for a routine analysis of LPA and S1P in many clinical samples.