Abstract
Lipids are natural substances found in all living organisms and involved in many biological functions. Imbalances in the lipid metabolism are linked to various diseases such as obesity, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease. Lipids comprise thousands of chemically distinct species making them a challenge to analyze because of their great structural diversity.Thanks to the technological improvements in the fields of chromatography, high-resolution mass spectrometry, and bioinformatics over the last years, it is now possible to perform global lipidomics analyses, allowing the concomitant detection, identification, and relative quantification of hundreds of lipid species. This review shall provide an insight into a general lipidomics workflow and its application in metabolic biomarker research.
Highlights
Metabolic diseases can present long before becoming clinically apparent
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and associated mortality have a high prevalence in western societies
There is a clinical need for additional risk markers in CVD as well as a better understanding on how lipids relate with established metabolic risk factors to evaluate their potential as clinical biomarkers
Summary
Metabolic diseases can present long before becoming clinically apparent. Early predictors of metabolic disease are of particular importance since a delay or prevention of morbidity is possible via pharmacological and behavioral interventions. There is a clinical need for additional risk markers in CVD as well as a better understanding on how lipids relate with established metabolic risk factors to evaluate their potential as clinical biomarkers. Lipids show a large structural diversity that is comprised in the term “lipidome.” According to the comprehensive classification system proposed by the LIPID MAPS consortium (http://www.lipidmaps.org), lipids can be classified into eight different classes (Fig. 1): glycerophospholipids (GP), sphingolipids (SL), glycerolipids, sterol lipids, free fatty acids, prenol lipids, saccharolipids, and polyketides (Fahy et al 2005; Fahy et al 2009). 200 GP species were identified in human plasma (Fig. 2). Lipidomics is a relatively young field of science, which aims to identify and quantify all individual lipid species and their functions within a biological system (Han and Gross 2003). They offer great promise for new-generation biomarkers in common and complex phenotypes such as dyslipidemia and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)
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