Lipids play important roles in regulating and controlling of cellular functions and are involved in human physical and pathological conditions. Lipidomics, the large-scale study of pathways and networks of cellular lipids in biological systems, becomes an emerging field of basic and translational research. However, lipids constitute a huge family, and may be divided into eight categories: fatty acids, glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, saccharolipids, and polyketides (totally around 1,680,000 species), the quantification analysis and function characterization are still challenging. In our group, we focus on the research of lipid metabolism. On a macro level, we will develop methods for separation and detection of bioactive lipids in complicated biosystems, to identify the structures, the functions and the metabolic networks of bioactive lipids for discovery of diagnostic and prognostic markers and therapeutic targets for diseases. On a micro level, we will develop methods based on mass spectrometry (MS), to investigate the single cell lipid metabolism, the interaction among cells, the mechanism of anti-drug in cancer cells and the mechanism of oxidative stress, etc.

Lipid Analysis

Our group has developed a highly effective and sensitive method, which based on HPLC-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS), to analyze lipids in body fluid, and demonstrated, for the first time, that the level of lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) in plasma is a potential marker for the early detection of colorectal cancer (CRC), which is extremely important for patient with CRC to improve 5-year relative survival rate. We also found that phospholipase A2 (PLA2）enzyme activity is significantly elevated in ovarian cancer tumor, and PLA2 activity specific inhibitors are highly effective in blocking ovarian cancer development. Our work is getting published in well-respected peer-reviewed journals, including J. Clin. Oncol., Am. J. Pathol., FASEB J., J. Lipid Res.,etc.