Wen Jiang

Hallucinogenic mushrooms, known as magic mushrooms, contain psychoactive compounds such as psilocin and psilocybin (Figure 1). This hallucinogenic effect means they are constantly offered on the black market. Therefore, the reliable quantification of these compounds is a particularly important task for forensic analysis because their results have a significant impact on the judgement passed by the courts.

In this study, we aimed to use a charge modulated HILIC stationary phase (iHILIC®-Fusion) to separate different siderophores of the Pseudomonas taiwanensis VLB120 bacteria.

Phospholipids (PLs) are the major components of cellular membranes. They are important for the functionality of membrane proteins or serve as precursors for second messengers. Several studies reveal the role of PL alterations in various diseases such as cancer (1). Therefore, it is crucial to identify and quantify PLs in complex biological samples for lipidomic studies and clinical research.

New separation techniques for the analysis of polar and ionic analytes have aroused great interest in the field of metabolomics and environmental investigation in the past two decades. Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) is a promising tool to address this challenge. HILIC separation is based on the polarity of analytes, which generally show stronger retention with increasing polarity according to the HILIC separation mechanism. Furthermore, the high content of organic solvent in the mobile phase leads to good ionization properties in the electrospray ionization (ESI), and consequently enhances the detection sensitivity by hyphenated mass spectrometry (MS) detector.

Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HILIC–ESI-MS) has been established as a method to separate and quantify polar and ionic analytes in a direct way for two decades. HILIC separation is based on the polarity of analytes, so the more polar analytes have stronger retention on a HILIC column.

The rising numbers of liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS)-based metabolomics applications and untargeted metabolism studies have increased the need for reliable chromatographic separations for a large quantity of molecules with widespread polarities.