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Updated: Aug 17, 2026
Assessing Whole-Body Lipid-Handling Capacity in Mice
Published on: November 24, 2020
Cardiac lipidomic profiles in mice undergo changes from fetus to adult
Ze'e Chen1, Zhixiang Pan1, Can Huang1
1Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen Peking University-The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Medical Center, School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.
Aims:
Lipids are essential cellular components with many important biological functions. Disturbed lipid biosynthesis and metabolism has been shown to cause cardiac developmental abnormality and cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we aimed to investigate the composition and the molecular profiles of lipids in mammalian hearts between embryonic and adult stages and uncover the underlying links between lipid and cardiac development and maturation.
Materials And Methods:
We collected mouse hearts at the embryonic day 11.5 (E11.5), E15.5, and the age of 2 months, 4 months and 10 months, and performed lipidomic analysis to determine the changes of the composition, molecular species, and relative abundance of cardiac lipids between embryonic and adult stages. Additionally, we also performed the electronic microscopy and RNA sequencing in both embryonic and adult mouse hearts.
Key Findings:
The relative abundances of certain phospholipids and sphingolipids including cardiolipin, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, and ceramide, are different between embryonic and adult hearts. Such lipidomic changes are accompanied with increased densities of mitochondrial membranes and elevated expression of genes related to mitochondrial formation in adult mouse hearts. We also analyzed individual molecular species of phospholipids and sphingolipids, and revealed that the composition and distribution of lipid molecular species in hearts also change with development.
Significance:
Our study provides not only a lipidomic view of mammalian hearts when developing from the embryonic to the adult stage, but also a potential pool of lipid indicators for cardiac cell development and maturation.
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