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Lipidomics: coming to grips with lipid diversity

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 11, pages 593–598 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Although lipids are biomolecules with seemingly simple chemical structures, the molecular composition of the cellular lipidome is complex and, currently, poorly understood. The exact mechanisms of how compositional complexity affects cell homeostasis and its regulation also remain unclear. This emerging field is developing sensitive mass spectrometry technologies for the quantitative characterization of the lipidome. Here, we argue that lipidomics will become an essential tool kit in cell and developmental biology, molecular medicine and nutrition.

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Figure 1: The molecular diversity of lipid species.
Figure 2: Analytical technologies for understanding the lipidome molecular complexity.

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Acknowledgements

Work in the K.S. laboratory was supported by EUFP6 PRISM grant LSHB-CT2007–037,740, DFG Schwerpunktprogramm1175, BMBF BioChance Plus grant 0313,827 and BMBF ForMaT grant 03FO1212. Work in the A.S. laboratory was supported by DFG SFB TRR 83 grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andrej Shevchenko and Kai Simons are at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Pfotenhauerstrasse 108, 01307 Dresden, Germany.,

    Andrej Shevchenko & Kai Simons

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Correspondence to Kai Simons.

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Kai Simons is a co-founder of the biotechnology company JADO technologies, which specializes in membrane invention technologies including lipid raft modulation.

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Shevchenko, A., Simons, K. Lipidomics: coming to grips with lipid diversity. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 11, 593–598 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm2934

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