The rise of hydrophilic interaction chromatography in untargeted clinical metabolomics

Hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) was introduced more than two decades ago and has garnered much attention. Characterized by a hydrophilic stationary phase used in combination with an aqueous organic mobile phase, numerous improvements have been achieved and HILIC is now considered as an attractive alternative to reversed-phase phase liquid chromatography (LC) for many applications. HILIC provides several advantages over reversed-phase LC for the analysis of polar compounds, including higher retention of polar metabolites, enhanced mass spectrometric sensitivity, moderate back-pressure — even at high flow rates, or when used with sub-2-µm particle size — and orthogonal selectivity. Several important technical developments have been proposed during the last decade that foster its use in metabolomics. This review presents an overview of the most recent technical improvements and applications of HILIC analysis in untargeted clinical metabolomics and discusses important practical considerations, including the selection of the optimal column chemistry, appropriate eluents, sample preparation, and data analysis.