Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) method is commonly used for mass spectrometry sample preparation in lipidomics research. The VERSA 1100 Liquid-Liquid Extraction Workstation has been configured for automated lipid extraction from biological samples using the chloroform:methanol (Bligh and Dyer) method to reduce human error and increase efficiency.

Below are the data generated from extracting lipids from chicken liver samples. In brief, samples are extracted in 15x85mm glass tubes in 24 sample/batch.

This automated procedure includes adding solvents, mixing, phase separation, drying, reconstitution, adding internal standard and sample transfer. Compared to manual chloroform:methanol lipid extraction experiment, the automated extraction efficiency was found to be 94.3% and the coefficient of variation (CV) for the extraction of top 200 lipids from chicken liver using VERSA 1100 was 2-fold lower than that obtained with manual extraction. The VERSA 1100 Automated Lipid Extraction workstation is also compatible with non-chlorinated solvent systems such as MTBE and BUME methods.