Easy mass spectrometry for metabolomics and quality control of vegetable and animal fats

Easy ambient sonic spray ionization (EAST), a novel desorption/ionization technique for ambient mass spectrometry analysis, is shown to permit the characterization of different types of vegetable and animal fats. The taxonomic markers of the oils, mainly fatty acids and phenols, are extracted with methanol/water (1:1) solution and made alkaline with NH4OH, then placed and dried on the surface of a glass tip and directly analyzed by EASI-MS in the negative-ion mode. EAST provides a supersonic cloud of charged droplets that causes efficient desorption and ionization of the oil markers directly from the surface of the glass tip. As proof-of-principle cases, EASI(-)-MS was applied to genuine samples of olive oil, hazelnut oil, soybean oil, grape seed oil, canola oil, butter, and lard. Characteristic metabolomics EAST(-)-MS profiles of fatty acids and eventually phenols were obtained.