Is there a list of must-have columns for LC-MS/MS used in biochemistry/clinical lab setting?

Question

Considering a wide variety of chromatographic columns used for (U)HPLC based on

• phase type (normal or reverse);
• column dimensions (geometry, length, inner diameter);
• particle material $(\ce{SiO2},$ $\ce{ZrO2},$ $\ce{TiO2},\ldots),$ size, shape and porosity;
• dopants/modifiers etc.,

as well as proprietary manufacturing techniques involved, is there a narrowed-down list of the bare-minimum column types that every analytical lab doing specifically liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry must have to cover the majority of the analytical routines (qualitative and quantitative analysis of short-chain fatty acids, primary metabolites, amino acids etc.)?

Background: a new LC-MS/MS lab is being created within a university's biochemistry division from the ground up both for the fundamental research and providing analytical services, so listing the most versatile and recent columns would be appreciated. I do realize the question is borderline off-topic being somewhat opinion-based, so it would be nice if the answer were based on a trustworthy source.

Answer 1

This answer will change fairly frequently because technologies are always improving. These days, I think a bare minimum list might be something like:

1. a 2.1 mm × 50 mm C18 column for rapid reversed-phase methods.
2. a 2.1 mm × 150 mm C18 column for slower, broader-coverage reversed phase methods.
3. a 2.1 mm × 50 mm HILIC column for rapid methods to detect polar metabolites.
4. a 2.1 mm × 150 mm HILIC column for slower, broader-coverage methods to detect polar metabolites.

Some further notes:

• If your lab is going to use ion-pairing based methods, you will probably want separate columns for ion-pairing methods and "clean" methods without ion-pairing reagent. Ion-pairing agents like tributylamine and/or perfluoroheptanoic acid are very difficult/impossible to remove from columns once they have been used for this purpose.

• Fairly soon the best answer might be to use 1.0 mm diameter columns instead of the "standard" 2.1 mm diameter that is most common nowadays.

• The most widely used HILIC column seems to the "BEH Amide" column chemistry from Waters. Following close behind may be ZIC-HILIC from SeQuant and/or Agilent's HILIC-Z chemistry.

• For C18 chromatography, performance differences between different vendors are comparatively minor (although real). A wide variety of chemistries are used.