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onstrated for the analysis of lipid extracts from different biological materials ( 14–18), but the most promising ad-vantage of the MALDI-TOF/MS technique turned out to be the possibility to perform lipid analysis avoiding extrac-tion and/or separation steps. Recent advances in MALDI-TOF/MS techniques of lipid analysis have led to the direct coupling of HPTLC-MALDI ( 19–22), as well as to the direct analysis of tissue slices with the MALDI-MSI ( 23–25). In both cases, a plate containing the sample is coated with the matrix solution (silica plate or tissue on microscope glass plate, respectively), attached onto the MALDI target, and directly scanned with the la-ser to obtain a fast MS analysis of the lipids on the plate. Both these methods allow a fast and convenient lipid anal-ysis, skipping extraction steps that are usually required fo