Fatty Acid-based Membrane Lipidomics: Why, What and When

Lipidomics and nutrilipidomics are tools at the disposal of health professionals involved in the diagnosis and care of patients, as well as in the management of optimal conditions for prevention [1]. Functional lipidomics, divided into membrane lipidomics, mediator lipidomics and biomarker lipidomics, addresses the three main tasks involving lipids in living organisms, following-up their types and levels in correlation with physiological and pathological conditions. Research in these fields opened the way to a full understanding of the lipid roles in recognition and immunity, tissue development, signaling for cell reactivity and regeneration, giving a different, wider, meaning also to the fat balance that is required from a nutritional point of view. Research in membrane lipidomics carried out in the last decade individuated a crucial level of lipid diversity in living organisms: indeed, the quality and quantity of phospholipid structures found as components of cell membranes represent not only the availability of the nutritional and metabolic pathways, but fulfill the important task of maintenance of the overall of cell homeostasis [1]. This is realized in each tissue with the appropriate fatty acid balance [2], whose maintenance involves an active membrane remodeling process, known as Lands’s cycle [3].