Lipidomic methodologies applicable to the study of endocannabinoids and related compounds: Endocannabinoidomics

Abstract

AbstractThe identification of the endogenous ligands of the cannabinoid CB1 and CB2 receptors (endocannabinoids) as lipids nominally derived from arachidonic acid was a further demonstration that lipid molecules can be endowed with important signaling functions. This discovery was paralleled by the development of ever more sophisticated technologies for the profiling of small molecules, and the subsequent birth and exponential growth of the discipline of “metabolomics” and, in the case of analytical techniques for lipids, of its subdiscipline known as “lipidomics”. The application of lipidomics to the analysis of endocannabinoids, and of endocannabinoid‐like molecules with activities also at non‐cannabinoid receptors, is now culminating in the identification of more families of fatty acid derivatives, thus revealing what has been defined as the “endocannabinoid metabolome”, and in the development of specific techniques for the lipidomic profiling of these molecules. These new analytical advances are discussed in this article.