A robust method for performing 1H-NMR lipidomics in embryonic zebrafish

The embryonic zebrafish is an ideal system for lipid analyses with relevance to many areas of bioscience research, including biomarkers and therapeutics. Research in this area has been hampered by difficulties in extracting, identifying and quantifying lipids. We employed 1 H-NMR at 700MHz to profile lipids in developing zebrafish embryos. The optimal method for lipidomics in embryonic zebrafish incorporated rapid lipid extraction using chloroform and an environment without oxygen depletion. Pools of 10 embryos gave the most acceptable signal-to-noise ratio, and the inclusion of chorions in the sample had no significant effect on lipid abundances. Embryos, bisected into cranial (head and yolk sac) and caudal (tail) regions, were compared by principal component analysis and analysis of variance. The lipid spectra (including lipid annotation) are available in the public repository MetaboLights (MTBLS2396).