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Lipid Extraction: Basics of the Methyl-tert-Butyl Ether Extraction

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Encyclopedia of Lipidomics

Definition

The MTBE-based extraction procedure enables fast and automated generation of total lipid extracts from biological materials like blood, tissue samples, and cell cultures using the MTBE/methanol/water solvent system in volumetric ratios of 10:3:2.5 (v/v/v).

Background

The MTBE method for lipid extraction was introduced in 2008 by Matyash et al. to improve the high-throughput capabilities of lipidomics studies (Matyash et al. 2008). The method itself was inspired by the classical methods of Folch (Folch et al. 1957) and Bligh and Dyer (1959) utilizing similar principles. In the first step, the biological material (e.g., plasma (Surma et al. 2015) or tissue (Chen et al. 2013) is solubilized with a mixture of methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and methanol (10:3; v/v) to bring small metabolites into solution while proteins and other macromolecules are precipitated (Liquid Extraction: Folch). Afterwards water is added to the crude extract to induce phase separation. Polar molecules...

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Abbreviations

MTBE:

Methyl-tert-butyl ether

References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center Borstel, Parkallee 1-40, 23845, Borstel, Germany

    Lars F. Eggers & Dominik Schwudke

Authors
  1. Lars F. Eggers
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  2. Dominik Schwudke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dominik Schwudke .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine Centre for Life Sciences, Singapore, Singapore

    Markus R. Wenk

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Eggers, L.F., Schwudke, D. (2016). Lipid Extraction: Basics of the Methyl-tert-Butyl Ether Extraction. In: Wenk, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Lipidomics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7864-1_96-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7864-1_96-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-7864-1

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