Serially coupling hydrophobic interaction and reversed-phase chromatography with simultaneous gradients provides greater coverage of the metabolome

The serial coupling of a reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) column to a hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) column has been developed in recent years for the detection of polar and nonpolar metabolites. TCA intermediates, bile acid standards and numerous polar and non-polar metabolites extracted from beer were analysed using a combined RPLC/HILIC method. Non-polar metabolites were retained by the RPLC column. Polar metabolites not retained by the RPLC column were retained and separated by the HILIC column. The results from this study validate this simple yet powerful metabolomics approach.