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Pitfalls in lipid mass spectrometry of mammalian samples — a brief guide for biologists

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 25, pages 759–760 (2024)Cite this article

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Publications that report mass spectrometry analyses of lipids often include lipid species that probably do not exist in the samples. Here we provide recommendations for scientists on submitting lipid data, and for reviewers, editors and readers on evaluating these data, to reduce the reporting of erroneous lipid species.

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  • 10 July 2024

    In the version of the article initially published, refs. 10 and 11 were switched and have now been amended in the HTML and PDF version of the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute for Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital-The Norwegian Radium Hospital, Oslo, Norway

    Tore Skotland & Kirsten Sandvig

  2. Centre for Cancer Cell Reprogramming, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Montebello, Oslo, Norway

    Tore Skotland & Kirsten Sandvig

  3. Lipidomic Consulting Ltd., Espoo, Finland

    Kim Ekroos

  4. Center for Human Nutrition and Department of Molecular Genetics. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

    Jeffrey McDonald

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

    Robert Ahrends

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

    Gerhard Liebisch

  7. Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Kirsten Sandvig

Authors
  1. Tore Skotland
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  2. Kim Ekroos
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  3. Jeffrey McDonald
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  4. Robert Ahrends
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  5. Gerhard Liebisch
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  6. Kirsten Sandvig
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Tore Skotland or Kim Ekroos.

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Competing interests

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

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Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology thanks the anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Lipidomics Standards Initiative: https://lipidomicstandards.org/

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Skotland, T., Ekroos, K., McDonald, J. et al. Pitfalls in lipid mass spectrometry of mammalian samples — a brief guide for biologists. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 25, 759–760 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-024-00758-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-024-00758-4

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