Related topics: cells · cell membrane · protein · diabetes · heart disease

Yeast uses plastic waste oils to make high-value chemicals

Polyolefins are a type of plastic that is resistant to breaking down. This makes this plastic—a kind found in everything from grocery bags to car bumpers—hard to recycle. In a new study, scientists have discovered a potential ...

Did the first cells evolve in soda lakes?

Soda lakes, which are dominated by dissolved sodium and carbonate species, could have provided the right conditions for the first cells, according to a new study published in PNAS Nexus.

Designing nanoparticles for pregnancy-safe treatments

Too often, the lack of clinical trials means that pregnant women suffer because available medications are prescribed off-label for them or not at all. A new study offers proof of concept for the important parameters to develop ...

Silencing a gene could lower cholesterol

Durable repression of a gene that has a role in controlling cholesterol levels, achieved without permanent genome editing, has been demonstrated in a mouse study published in Nature this week.

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Lipid

Lipids are a broad group of naturally-occurring molecules which includes fats, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E and K), monoglycerides, diglycerides, phospholipids, and others. The main biological functions of lipids include energy storage, as structural components of cell membranes, and as important signaling molecules.

Lipids may be broadly defined as hydrophobic or amphiphilic small molecules; the amphiphilic nature of some lipids allows them to form structures such as vesicles, liposomes, or membranes in an aqueous environment. Biological lipids originate entirely or in part from two distinct types of biochemical subunits or "building blocks": ketoacyl and isoprene groups. Using this approach, lipids may be divided into eight categories: fatty acyls, glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, saccharolipids and polyketides (derived from condensation of ketoacyl subunits); and sterol lipids and prenol lipids (derived from condensation of isoprene subunits).

Although the term lipid is sometimes used as a synonym for fats, fats are a subgroup of lipids called triglycerides. Lipids also encompass molecules such as fatty acids and their derivatives (including tri-, di-, and monoglycerides and phospholipids), as well as other sterol-containing metabolites such as cholesterol. Although humans and other mammals use various biosynthetic pathways to both break down and synthesize lipids, some essential lipids cannot be made this way and must be obtained from the diet.

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