The emerging field of lipidomics

Key PointsLipids are important small-molecule metabolites that have roles in a wide variety of physiological processes.Deregulation of lipid metabolism leads to onset of pathology, including many forms of cancer, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.Genetics, cell biology and biochemistry have fundamentally advanced our understanding of the biology of lipids in recent years.Novel methodologies for the biochemical analysis of lipids and their effectors will substantially further the field of lipid research, in particular at systems-level scale (lipidomics) approaches.These technologies are valuable tools at various stages of the drug development process, most importantly in target discovery and biomarker development.One of the major advantages of biochemical lipidomics, which aims at measuring lipid metabolites and their effectors, is that it might directly lead to the identification pathways of lipid action or lipid metabolism.AbstractThe crucial role of lipids in cell, tissue and organ physiology is demonstrated by a large number of genetic studies and by many human diseases that involve the disruption of lipid metabolic enzymes and pathways. Examples of such diseases include cancer, diabetes, as well as neurodegenerative and infectious diseases. So far, the explosion of information in the fields of genomics and proteomics has not been matched by a corresponding advancement of knowledge in the field of lipids, which is largely due to the complexity of lipids and the lack of powerful tools for their analysis. Novel analytical approaches — in particular, liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry — for systems-level analysis of lipids and their interacting partners (lipidomics) now make this field a promising area of biomedical research, with a variety of applications in drug and biomarker development.