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Working towards an exegesis for lipids in biology

Nature Chemical Biology volume 5, pages 602–606 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

As a field, lipidomics is in its infancy, yet it has already begun to influence lipid biochemistry in myriad ways. As with other omic technologies, the field is driven by advances in analytical chemistry, particularly by mass spectrometry. At the heart of a renaissance in lipid biochemistry, systems biology is being used to define the cellular lipome, build a comprehensive picture of metabolic interconnections, discover new molecular species and determine how lipids modulate biological functions.

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Figure 1: Biological membranes are often depicted as a sea of homogenous lipid in which membrane proteins reside and cytosolic proteins translocate.
Figure 2: Known initial biochemical steps responsible for the synthesis of all lipids.
Figure 3: Brain PC imaged by MALDI mass spectrometry.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported in part by a large-scale consortium grant from the US National Institutes of Health (GM 069338).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. H. Alex Brown is in the Department of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.,

    H Alex Brown

  2. Robert C. Murphy is in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, USA.,

    Robert C Murphy

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  2. Robert C Murphy
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Correspondence to H Alex Brown.

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Brown, H., Murphy, R. Working towards an exegesis for lipids in biology. Nat Chem Biol 5, 602–606 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio0909-602

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