脂质组学在医药研究中的应用

脂质组学是对整体脂质进行系统分析的一门新兴学科,通过比较不同生理状态下脂代谢网络的变化,进而识别代谢调控中关键的脂生物标志物,最终揭示脂质在各种生命活动中的作用机制。电喷雾电离-质谱技术是脂质组学领域中最核心的研究手段,目前已能对各种脂质尤其是磷脂进行高分辨率、高灵敏度、高通量的分析。随着质谱技术的进步,脂质组学在疾病脂生物标志物的识别、疾病诊断、药物靶点及先导化合物的发现和药物作用机制的研究等方面已展现出广泛的应用前景。

Application of Lipidomics in Medicine and Drug Development

Lipidomics, aiming to analyze the lipids and their interacting molecules in system level, is a sub emerging field in the metabonomics research field. Different lipids interact with each other and make up a compli-cated lipid metabolic network which is involved in many physiological processes. Through analyzing the lipid pro-files under different physiological conditions, lipidomics research can indicate the changes of the lipid metabolic network and the lipid-based biomarkers that contribute to the changes. With the development of mass spectrometry technology, especially the electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, lipids and in particular the phospholipids can be analyzed in a high throughput manner, which promotes the advances of lipidomics research. Currently, studies on the lipidomics level have been employed in many medicine related fields, such as the discovery of drug targets and the leading chemicals, the effecting mechanism of the drugs and so on. Thus lipidomics opens promising opportunities for disease diagnosis and treatment, as well as drug research and development.