An overview of lipidomics utilizing cadaver derived biological samples

ABSTRACT

Introduction

We present lipidomic studies that have utilized cadaveric biological samples, including tissues and bodily fluids (excluding blood or serum). Analyses of lipids from cadaveric-derived tissues play vital roles in many different fields, such as in anthropogeny to understand food habits of ancient people, in forensics for postmortem analyses, and in biomedical research to study human diseases.

Areas covered

The goal of the review is to demonstrate how cadavers can be utilized for study of lipidome to get biological insight in different fields. Several important considerations need to be made when analyzing lipids from cadaver samples. For example, what important postmortem changes occur due to environmental or other intrinsic factors that introduce deviations in the observed differences versus true differences? Do these factors affect distinct classes of lipids differently? How do we arrive at a reasonable level of certainty that the observed differences are truly biological rather than artifacts of sample collection, changes during transportation, or variations in analytical procedures? These are pressing questions that need to be addressed when performing lipidomics investigations utilizing postmortem tissues, which inherently presents hurdles and unknowns beginning with harvesting methods, transportation logistics, and at analytical techniques. In our review, we have purposefully omitted blood and serum studies since they pose greater challenges in this regard. Several studies have been carried out with cadaveric tissues and fluids that support the successful use of cases of these samples; however, many control studies are still necessary to provide insight into full potential of the cadaveric tissue and fluid resources. Most importantly, additional control studies will allow us to gain important insights into the opportunities lipidomics presents for biomedical studies of complex human disease and disorders. Another goal of the review is to generate awareness about limitations and pitfalls of use of cadaver materials for study of lipidome.

Expert Opinion

We comment on the current state of lipidomics studies that utilize cadaveric tissues, provide a few pertinent examples, and discuss perspectives on both future technological directions and the applications they will enable.

KEYWORDS:

• Lipidomics
• cadaveric
• postmortem
• mass spectrometry

Article highlights

• Postmortem to harvesting time, transport conditions, transport duration, extraction methods, use of extraction standards, and internal standards for quantification are sources of common indeterministic errors.

• Substantial technological advances have been made in analytical platforms (both mass spectrometry and NMR) for lipidomics. Use of ion mobility prior to mass spectrometry and magic angle spinning for high-resolution NMR combined with cryogenic cooling probes enables greater sensitivity and increases reproducibility in analyses.

• Lipidomics opens up the use of machine-learning and deep-learning to identify predictive value for susceptibility, progression and intervention efficacy for non-communicable, late-onset, and complex diseases.

• Lipidomics combined with other ‘-omics’ is poised to provide important insights into normal biological processes and mechanisms of disease, in addition to valuable information in anthropogenic and forensic studies.

• Cadaver-derived biological samples utilized for lipidomics (and other -omics) are expected to gain tremendous momentum in the near future.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health: EY031292; and the U.S. Department of Defense, W81XWH-19-1-0845.