Cracking the membrane lipid code

Abstract

Why has nature acquired such a huge lipid repertoire? Although it would be theoretically possible to make a lipid bilayer fulfilling barrier functions with only one glycerophospholipid, there are diverse and numerous different lipid species. Lipids are heterogeneously distributed across the evolutionary tree with lipidomes evolving in parallel to organismal complexity. Moreover, lipids are different between organs and tissues and even within the same cell, different organelles have characteristic lipid signatures. At the molecular level, membranes are asymmetric and laterally heterogeneous. This lipid asymmetry at different scales indicates that these molecules may play very specific molecular functions in biology. Some of these roles have been recently uncovered: lipids have been shown to be essential in processes such as hypoxia and ferroptosis or in protein sorting and trafficking but many of them remain still unknown. In this review we will discuss the importance of understanding lipid diversity in biology across scales and we will share a toolbox with some of the emerging technologies that are helping us to uncover new lipid molecular functions in cell biology and, step by step, crack the membrane lipid code.