Focus

Focus on Lipids

Focus issue:
July 2010 Volume 6, No 7

This themed issue features a collection of articles that describe our current understanding of the functions of lipids and the chemical methods used to study them at the individual level and within the larger biological systems where they function.

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Editorial

Focus on Lipids

Unlocking the lipid labyrinth p471

doi:10.1038/nchembio.404

Progress in understanding the functions of individual lipids has lagged behind that for other bioactive molecules, but recent technologies that enable the monitoring of individual lipids provide hope.

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Commentaries

Focus on Lipids

Challenges in studying phospholipid signaling pp473 - 475

Carsten Schultz

doi:10.1038/nchembio.389

Because of the large number of phospholipids, their highly active metabolism and our lack of understanding of protein-lipid specificity, lipid signaling is a particularly challenging subject to study. Help might come from new tools that will allow us to follow and manipulate lipids and lipid-binding proteins in living cells.

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Focus on Lipids

Seeing the future of bioactive lipid drug targets pp476 - 479

Jilly F Evans & John H Hutchinson

doi:10.1038/nchembio.394

Bioactive lipid signaling allows individual cells within the body to 'see' the surrounding environment and to respond in ways that will benefit the whole organism. Successful drug development for bioactive lipid targets requires a deep knowledge of the biology and pathobiology of each specific lipid signaling pathway.

Full Text | PDF (941 KB)