What are Lipids
Building blocks of life.
Lipids are a diverse group of small molecules. Glycerolipids, sterol lipids, sphingolipids, phospholipids – there are thousands of distinct lipids. Each of them is chemically unique and they have many different biological functions.
One biological role is to form the matrix of cell membranes, where they support a variety of vital functions. But lipids also function as energy storage, and serve as hormones, essential nutrients or cellular signaling molecules too. More and more we find functions related to individual lipid molecules.
Why are Lipids Important
Lipids in health and disease.
In humans, there are more than 2000 different lipids which are linked to health and disease. Their molecular interplay with genes, proteins and metabolites influences our well-being. This interplay is strongly affected by the cellular supply of each of these lipids.
‘Healthy’ means all lipids are perfectly balanced. Each cell must constantly adjust its lipid metabolism to achieve this goal. A disordered lipid metabolism poses a direct threat to health and life. It can fuel the development and even cause severe diseases.
Lipidomics
The research questions of our time.
Testing selected lipid molecules provides only a glimpse at the state of health. Measuring all lipids at once paints the big picture, a full lipidome. The technical solution to this is lipidomics, where thousands of lipids from biological samples are analyzed at once.
The lipids are shot into a mass spectrometer. Bioinformatics solutions and bio-statistical methods convert the mass spectrometer results into powerful charts and graphs. These extended lipid profiles tell all about the lipids of the original biological sample.
Study Lipidomics Publications
The key to great research is as simple as elegant: studying.
Which is why we created the Lipidomics Resource Center, an online platform which provides better access to lipid analysis publications – for free, to everybody.
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on December 10, 2023