Chiral-phase HPLC has been widely used as an essential means of separating and quantifying enantiomers in biological and synthetic samples. The methodology has been extended to the direct resolution of various synthetic and naturally occurring chiral glycerolipids, such as triacylglycerols and phospholipids, since the enantiomer resolution of synthetic mono- and diacylglycerols as 3,5-dinitrophenylurethane derivatives was achieved by chiral-phase HPLC in the 1980s. This review describes recent advances and applications of chiral-phase HPLC in lipid research. In particular it is focused on the analysis of enantiomeric glycerolipids including triacylglycerols and phospholipids.

It is important to investigate the distribution of lipid species in tissue to understand in situ biological phenomenon. The use of mass spectrometry imaging is attracting attention as a new valuable tool for visualization of lipid species in tissue. Mass spectrometry imaging is a two-dimensional mass spectrometry technique used to visualize the distribution of lipid species. Several lipid species including phospholipid, triglyceride, glycolipid, can be visualized by using mass spectrometry imaging. In this review, the applications of mass spectrometry imaging in lipid biology are briefly described.

Lipid is one of the important molecules in vivo and in foods, whereas the molecule is easily converted to lipid hydroperoxide by several oxidation processes (i.e., enzymatic oxidation, auto-oxidation and photo-oxidation). The resultant lipid hydroperoxide is believed to be closely involved in aging, diseases and food deterioration. However, there is still little information on the lipid peroxidation mechanism in vivo and in foods, mainly due to analytical limitation. To clear the issue, analysis of lipid hydroperoxide isomers has recently received a lot of attention, because specific lipid hydroperoxide isomers are generated by each oxidation process (enzymatic oxidation, auto-oxidation and photo-oxidation). Here we review the recent literature on the MS/MS, HPLC-MS/MS, and chiral stationary phase-MS/MS analysis of isomers of lipid hydroperoxide such as fatty acid hydroperoxide and phospholipid hydroperoxide.