Lipid Structure, Function, and Lipidomic Applications

Lipids are a key component of membranes and act as bioactive signaling molecules in biological systems. Over the years, lipids have gained much significance as their roles are being highlighted through various studies. The structural and functional diversity of lipid structure allows great variety to roles that these lipids can play in cellular organisms. With an increase of research interests in area related to lipids, much emphasis has been put toward the manner in which these can be analyzed. Recent developments in mass spectrometry-based platforms have allowed us to generate global lipid maps at the cellular level and elucidate the molecular complexity of lipid structures in detail. In this chapter we discuss some aspects of lipid classification, their structure and functions, and mass spectrometry-based lipidomics approach used for determination of lipid compositions.