The "Biogenesis, dynamics and homeostasis of membrane lipids" team at the Cell & Plant Physiology Laboratory has set up a lipid analysis technical platform to meet the needs of the team's academic or industrial projects as well as national and international collaborators. This technical platform makes it possible to establish glycerolipidome (= proportions of all classes of glycerolipids, also called "glycerolipidic profile") of all types of eukaryotic organisms and to quantify the variations of these profiles in response to environmental or genetic changes.
This analytical platform has been operational since 2010 and was built to optimize the initial techniques for thin layer chromatography (TLC chain) analysis. It allows the most precise and exhaustive identification of the different glycerolipids. A structural analysis line (ion trap mass spectrometry), in addition to the TLC chain, now makes it possible to establish the glycerolipidome, with the positioning of the fatty acids on the glycerol skeleton, of any organism in question, in less than 15 days. The acquisition of a triple quadrupole-coupled liquid chromatography (LC MS/MS), a sample preparator for gas chromatography (GC) and a GC coupled to a mass spectrometer (GC- MS) complete this technological platform and make it possible to carry out high-throughput analyzes, necessary in the case of screening to identify glycerolipid producing species or having particular compositions of fatty acids.
In 2014, this equipment set became the first fully functional membrane lipidomic analysis platform in France to identify and quantify all classes of glycerolipids, phospholipids (the main constituents of membranes in all living organisms), galactolipids (specific for photosynthetic organisms), via triacylglycerols (major constituents of lipid droplets).
Different services are offered to users: lipid extraction, the identification and quantification of fatty acids, the establishment of the glycerolipid profile of a new organism and the quantification of the glycerolipids of a biological extract.
Access to the analytical platform is either via the projects of the institute's teams (free access), or through collaborations financed by actors outside the units, or in the framework of partnerships with industry.