UCLA

The recent development of mass spectrometry-based lipidomics and chromatographic separation techniques has opened our eyes to the importance of many lipid species in various biochemical processes. Lipidomics is now seen as an extension of metabolomics and a complementary field to genomics and proteomics; together, all these fields constitute systems biology. Understanding the interplay between all the fields of systems biology could be a compelling approach to examining disease-induced cellular changes and building comprehensive hypotheses for further investigation. In this study, we aim to develop a comprehensive mass spectrometry PRM targeting assay to measure the quantity of all human proteins known to play a role in lipid metabolism. We envision that this assay could add an extra layer of complementarity between proteomics and lipidomics. The highly multiplexed assay will allow us to explain shifts in cellular lipid profile by measuring the change in lipid-metabolizing proteins level. Examining both profiles will aid in hypothesis generation and open the opportunity for further biochemical investigation.