Lipidomics as a diagnostic and research tool

Lipids play an important role in signaling mechanisms, regulation of protein function and control of a wide variety of cellular responses. As these lipids are important regulators their levels are tightly controlled and fine tuned both spatially as well as temporally. An imbalance in these lipids, in particular those involved in cell signaling, could lead to various pathological disorders. Thus these lipids and their effectors can serve as biomarkers. Indeed, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, neurological disorders, as well as infectious diseases have been directly implicated with aberrant lipid metabolism. This indicates that careful inspection of lipid level using metabolic profiling could help in clinical diagnostics of these pathologies.