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Dr. Lingjun Li

Lingjun received her BE degree in Environmental Analytical Chemistry from Beijing Polytechnic University and a PhD degree in Analytical Chemistry/Biomolecular Chemistry from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She did three-way postdoctoral research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Brandeis University, and University of Illinois before joining the School of Pharmacy faculty in 2002. She currently holds joint appointments in the School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry at UW-Madison, as well as being named Charles Melbourne Johnson Distinguished Chair and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor.

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CHRISTMAS: Chiral Pair Isobaric Labeling Strategy for Multiplexed Absolute Quantitation of Enantiomeric Amino Acids

Analytical Chemistry

Amino acids (AAs) in the d-form are involved in multiple pivotal neurological processes, although their l-enantiomers are most commonly found. Mass spectrometry-based analysis of low-abundance d-AAs has been hindered by challenging enantiomeric separation from l-AAs, low sensitivity for detection, and lack of suitable internal standards for accurate quantification. To address these critical gaps, N,N-dimethyl-l-leucine (l-DiLeu) tags are first validated as novel chiral derivatization reagents for chromatographic separation of 20 pairs of d/l-AAs...

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Single-cell lipidomics enabled by dual-polarity ionization and ion mobility-mass spectrometry imaging

Nature Communications

Single-cell (SC) analysis provides unique insight into individual cell dynamics and cell-to-cell heterogeneity. Here, we utilize trapped ion mobility separation coupled with dual-polarity ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) to enable high-throughput in situ profiling of the SC lipidome. Multimodal SC imaging, in which dual-polarity-mode MSI is used to perform serial data acquisition runs on individual cells, significantly enhanced SC lipidome coverage. High-spatial resolution SC-MSI identifies both inter- and intracellular lipid heterogeneity; this heterogeneity is further explicated...

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Global Neuropeptidome Profiling in Response to Predator Stress in Rat: Implications for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry

Traumatic stress triggers or exacerbates multiple psychiatric illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nevertheless, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying stress-induced pathology remain unclear, in part due to the limited understanding of neuronal signaling molecules, such as neuropeptides, in this process. Here, we developed mass spectrometry (MS)-based qualitative and quantitative analytical strategies to profile neuropeptides in rats exposed to predator odor (an ethologically relevant analogue of trauma-like stress) versus control subjects (no odor) ...

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