Using high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry for the quantification of plasma phospholipids in children with type 1 diabetes

Quantification of the plasma phospholipids composition in children with different stages of type 1 diabetes was performed using HPLC/MS with electrospray ionization. Reliable (p < 0.05) changes in the concentrations of both the general phospholipid classes and individual molecular species were revealed. It was found that, regardless of the disease duration, the concentration of lysophosphatidylcholine in the plasma was reduced. The concentration of the other phospholipid classes remained virtually unaffected. Quantitative profiling showed that the concentrations of phosphatidylcholine (16: 0/16: 0, 16: 0/18: 1 and 18: 2/20: 4) and phosphatidylethanolamine (16: 0/22: 6) were significantly increased and those of phosphatidylcholine (18: 0/18: 2, 18: 2/18: 2) and sphingomyelin (14: 0/S18: 1, 15: 0/S18: 1, 22: 2/S18: 0, and 24: 2/S18: 0) were reduced in the plasma at the early stages of type 1 diabetes. A similar dynamics was observed for phosphatidylcholine 16: 0/20: 4 molecular species and plasmalogen phosphatidylcholine 16: 0/20: 4, namely, an increase in the concentration of phospholipids containing arachidonic acid at the early stages of the disease and normalization of the prolong disease.