BURÉ Corinne

Research activities :

I have a long standing experience of mass spectrometry (since 1999), developing in particular methodologies for lipidomics since 2009. My knowledge about the fragmentation of various molecules, chemical or biological molecules, has been of great help to understand the fragmentation of lipids. I showed that MS/MS and MS³ could be used to identify and characterize a family of complex glycosylated lipids, GIPCs. The use of LC-MS/MS helped to quantify other lipids, such as phospholipids (Figure 1), estradiol and retinoic acid. Analysis of these lipids allowed me to test the robustness of the developed methods thanks to the diversity and complexity of the analyzed samples, often from murine models (brain, plasma) but also from other organisms such as plants, yeast, marine sources and parasites. All the analysis mentioned is conducted to answer biological questions such as the study of signaling pathways in response to stress, the search for new synthetic pathways for PS rich in EPA and DHA for the food industry, for phospholipids rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids n-3 to formulate liposomes for nutritional applications, for new antimalarial strategies (ANR PaluMet 2021-2025) or for understanding of memory decline.

Figure 1: Chromatogram of standards phospholipids analyzed by RPLC-MS/MS.

The Fulbright grant allowed to identify and characterize several lipids A, constituting a part of lipopolysaccharides, in P. aeruginosa bacteria, with the aim to develop new strategies to fight against P. aeruginosa. Thanks to LC-MS/MS with HCD and UVPD (Figure 2), 35 lipid A were identified, with 3 to 6 acyl chains. This method permitted to separate several isomeric species.

Figure 2: Example of lipid A structure. In red, fragment ions coming from HCD and in blue, fragment ions coming from UVPD.

My research activity in lipidomic evolved also towards imaging mass spectrometry, thereby incorporating a new research theme in my work. Analysis of phospholipids, particularly in the brain, gives good results in MALDI imaging mass spectrometry and that's why I became interested in the study of phospholipids involved in neurodevelopmental abnormalities of autistic-like in the mouse model. In this project, the challenge is to identify lipid markers of these anomalies, to locate and quantify them in the brain, allowing us to better understand the pathology of autism. The experiments are still on-going.

Currently, new projects on-going concern the analysis of the interactions between DNA and ligands by native Mass Spectrometry.

CV :

2019-2020: Fulbright grant, 6 months, Brodbelt’s lab, Austin, University of Texas

2016: Habilitation à diriger des Recherches, Bordeaux University 

2005: Doctorat en Chimie Analytique, Orléans University

1997: D.E.A. de Spectrochimie, Analyse et Physicochimie Organiques, Paris VI University

Major publications

Buré et al., Anal. Chem., 2021, 93, 4255-4262

Lozan et al., Anal. Bioanal. Chem., 2017, 409, 5279-5289

Buré et al., Anal. Bioanal. Chem., 2013, 405, 203-213

Cacas et al., Phytochem., 2013, 96, 191-200

Buré et al., Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom., 2011, 25, 3131-3145