Human blood is famously fraught with fats; now researchers have a specific idea of just how numerous and diverse these lipids actually are. A national research team, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has created the first “lipidome” of human plasma, identifying and quantifying almost 600 distinct fat species circulating in human blood.“Everybody knows about blood lipids like cholesterol and triglycerides,” said Edward A. Dennis, PhD, distinguished professor of pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego and principal investigator of LIPID MAPS, a national consortium studying the structure and function of lipids. “For the first time, we’ve identified and measured hundreds more and ultimately we might discover thousands. These numbers and their remarkable diversity illustrate that lipids have key, specific functions, most of which we do not yet recognize or understand. This lipidome is a first step towards being able to investigate correlations between specific fat molecules and disease and developing new treatments.”
To read the full, original article click on this link: Researcher find fats galore in human plasma | Science Blog
