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Updated: Aug 12, 2026

Biochemical and High Throughput Microscopic Assessment of Fat Mass in Caenorhabditis Elegans
Published on: March 30, 2013
Biological complexity is under the 'strange attraction' of non-esterified fatty acids
1Laboratoire de Biochimie Endocrinienne, Faculté de Médecine X. Bichat, Université Denis Diderot, Paris, France.
Abstract:
It is now clear from numerous data that non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs) can act without any metabolic modification as second messengers or modulators of the complex signalling network which is characteristic of mammals. This network can respond differently to adapt the organism to the various endogenous and exogenous environmental situations. NEFAs have a wide range of molecular structures, and thus can exert different specific modulatory actions on this signalling network, such as amplification, inhibition or signal redirection. We have chosen the term 'strange attractions' to describe these signalling modulations by analogy with the 'strange attractions' concept introduced in deterministic chaos theory. NEFAs can modulate the functions of mammals at all levels of organization (molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, etc).
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