Lipid geometrical isomerism: From chemistry to biology and diagnostics

Lipidomics, the discipline regarding chemical and metabolic lipid fates in living organisms, has brought about a successful innovation to lipid research. Expansion of trans lipid research can be easily foreseen in analytics, chemical mechanisms, liposome and oil technology, lipidomics, and diagnostics. Innovative fields can also include the design of molecular switches, taking advantage of the different sensitivity of trans- and cis-containing membranes to physical and chemical stimuli, as well as the determination of biological and pharmacological strategies based on the tunable molecular interactions produced by the exchange of the natural cis with the unnatural trans geometry. The presence of trans lipids in membranes also has a profound influence on temperature sensitivity as tested by insertion of a probe sensitive to the lipid environment, such as cis-parinaric acid, using accurate stopped-flow fluorescence measurements.