Exploring Life at Its Simplest: Scientists Create a "Minimal Cell Membrane" with Just Two Lipids

Surprising Effects of a Two-Lipid Diet

27-Nov-2024 - Lipids, or fats, are essential to life. They form the membranes around cells, protecting them from the outside. In nature, there is an enormous diversity of lipids, with each organism having its own unique combination. But what are the minimum lipid requirements for a cell to survive? A research ...

Lipids with potential health benefits in herbal teas

The lipids in some herbal teas have been identified in detail for the first time, preparing the ground for investigating their contribution to the health benefits of the teas

05-Apr-2024 - Herbal teas are enjoyed worldwide, not only for their taste and refreshment but also for a wide range of reputed health benefits. But the potential significance of a category of compounds called lipids in the teas has been relatively unexplored. Researchers at Hokkaido University, led by ...

Innovative microscopy technique reveals secrets of lipid synthesis inside cells

Two-color infrared photothermal microscopy (2C-IPM) opens new avenues for long-term study of lipid metabolism in living cells

30-Jan-2024 - South Korean researchers led by Director CHO Minhaeng at the IBS Center for Molecular Spectroscopy and Dynamics (IBS CMSD) made a pivotal discovery in the field of cellular microscopy. The team has successfully developed Two-Color Infrared Photothermal Microscopy (2C-IPM), a novel technology ...

Neutrons for better vaccines against multidrug resistant germs

FRM II lets scientists look deep inside the structure of biomolecules

13-Apr-2023 - Neutrons from the Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) can be used to explore the structure of biomolecules. The most recent success: the precise analysis of a promising vaccine against multidrug resistant germs. Bacteria which are resistant to all conventional antibiotics cause ...

New findings could pave the way to detecting the building blocks of life in our solar system

Detecting biomolecules on ocean moons

07-Dec-2022 - It would be technically possible for future space missions to detect DNA, lipids, and other bacterial components on ocean moons in our solar system – provided that these building blocks of life do exist beyond Earth. This is the conclusion that has now been reached by an international team of ...

Cell Membranes in Super Resolution

For the first time ever, expansion microscopy allows the imaging of even the finest details of cell membranes. This offers new insights into bacterial and viral infection processes

04-Dec-2020 - Expansion microscopy (ExM) enables the imaging of cells and their components with a spatial resolution far below 200 nanometres. For this purpose, the proteins of the sample under investigation are cross-linked into a swellable polymer. Once the interactions between the molecules have been ...

The lipid code

New chemical tools can control the concentration of lipids in living cells

21-Apr-2020 - Lipids, or fats, have many functions in our body: They form membrane barriers, store energy or act as messengers, which regulate cell growth and hormone release. Many of them are also biomarkers for severe diseases. So far, it has been very difficult to analyze the functions of these molecules in ...

Looking at the good vibes of molecules: a new method for label-free metabolic imaging

09-Jan-2020 - Label-free dynamic detection of biomolecules is a major challenge in live-cell microscopy. The simultaneous visualization of dynamic alterations for classes of metabolites, such as carbohydrates and lipids, was an unmet need in biomedical research. Now, a novel imaging method developed by a ...

Obesity risk quantification: a jump towards the future through the lens of artificial intelligence applied to lipid science

Scientists and biotech start-up Lipotype teamed up

24-Oct-2019 - According to WHO, nearly 1 out of 6 adults is obese. This makes obesity a prime threat to human health because it increases mortality and morbidity. In daily healthcare practice, the go-to indicator of overweight and obesity is the body mass index (BMI), a calculated relation between body weight ...

Shipment tracking for "fat parcels" in the body

Researchers show that highly sensitive method can "track" lipid metabolism

16-Oct-2019 - Without fat, nothing works in the body: These substances serve as energy suppliers and important building blocks - including for the envelopes of living cells. Numerous diseases are related to disorders in the fat metabolism, such as obesity or cancer. Researchers from the LIMES Institute at the ...