Lipid metabolism and identification of biomarkers in asthma by lipidomic analysis

Lipids participate in many important biological functions through energy storage, material transport, signal transduction, and molecular recognition processes. Studies have reported that asthmatic patients have abnormal lipid metabolism. However, there are limited studies on the characterization of lipid metabolism in asthmatic patients by lipidomics. We characterized the plasma lipid profile of 28 healthy controls and 33 outpatients with asthma (18 mild, 15 moderate) by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry-based lipidomics. We determined 1338 individual lipid species in the plasma. Significant changes were identified in ten lipid species in asthmatic patients than in healthy controls (all P