The -omics sciences took off at the end of the 20th century with the sequencing of the human genome. The 21st century is marked by the development of integral proteomic analysis. However, the current trend is towards "metabolomics", a science characterized by the identification and quantification of all the molecular constituents of the cell, including its nucleic acids, amino acids, sugars and lipids. The latter comprise by far the largest number of distinct molecular species in cellular metabolism, with tens of thousands of different lipid molecules present in cells and tissues. We have developed new lipidomic techniques based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, called CLASS (Comprehensive Lipidomics Analysis by Separation Simplification ), which we have mobilized for the comprehensive omic analysis of around 500 lipids from activated macrophages in the immune response, integrating transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic analysis of lipid metabolites.
We also profiled human plasma lipids to quantify nearly 600 distinct lipid molecular species present in all mammalian lipid categories. This has important implications for the future of applied medicine and for understanding the mechanisms of disease.
