Biofluid lipidome: a source for potential diagnostic biomarkers

Lipidomics is the identification and quantitation of changes in the lipidome of a cell, tissue, organ or biofluid in health and disease using high resolution mass spectrometry. Lipidome of a particular organism has relevance to the disease manifestation as it reflects the metabolic changes which can be a consequence of the disease. Hence these changes in the molecules can be considered as potential markers for screening and early detection of the disease. Biological fluids as blood/serum/plasma, urine, saliva, tear and cerebrospinal fluid, due to their accessibility, offer ease of collection with minimal or no discomfort to the patient and provide a ready footprint of the metabolic changes occurring during disease. This review provides a brief introduction to lipidomics and its role in understanding the metabolic changes in health and disease followed by discussion on the chemical diversity of the lipid species and their biological role, mammalian lipids and their metabolism and role of lipids in pathogens and the immune response before dwelling further into importance of studying lipidome in various biological fluids. The challenges in performing a lipidomic analysis at the experimental and data analysis stages are discussed.