ABSTRACT
Lipidomics is the identification and characterization of multiple complex lipids from a cell, tissue, or organ. Also, lipidomics can be applied to a part of a cell (e.g., photoreceptor outer segment). Lipidomics includes interactions between lipids and interactions of lipids with other molecules (e.g., lipid-protein interactions). Lipidprotein interactions are particularly important from a functional point of view when the protein in question is, for example, an ion channel, receptor, enzyme, or transporter. Lipidomics-based analysis of specific stereochemical lipid structures has become important for the elucidation and bioactivity of signaling lipids. Lipidomics approaches are analogous to the definition of gene expression profiles-genomicsand of the identification and characterization of proteins-proteomics. Thus, the genome, the proteome, and the lipidome are distinct areas of knowledge. Moreover, lipidomics belongs to the larger domain of metabolomics, which aims to attain a complete definition and understanding of the metabolome. Several recent reviews deal with various aspects of lipidomics (1-5).
