24.08.2021

Lipids regulate inflammation and tissue regeneration

Science is all about systematising and explaining the observed phenomena. Although we usually rely on research papers to access the latest information on a particular issue, the habit of having an actual book in your office or laboratory still persists — especially when the authors have put together a comprehensive collection of items explained by the world’s leading experts in their respective fields. This is definitely the case with the brand-new book ‘Immunomodulatory Biomaterials: Regulating the Immune Response with Biomaterials to Affect Clinical Outcome’, published by Elsevier in the ‘Woodhead Publishing Series in Biomaterials’. What is even more exciting is an important contribution made by Sechenov University to the content.

The book is comprised of a number of chapters dealing with various issues — with the ultimate idea of exploring host immune responses which determine functional and clinical outcomes of implanted biomaterials and medical devices. Chapter 8, titled ‘Lipids as Regulators of Inflammation and Tissue Regeneration’, is written by researchers from Sechenov University, University of Pittsburgh (USA), West Virginia University (USA), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (USA). In this chapter, the authors comment on the link between the inflammatory response and a variety of damage-associated molecular patterns, including oxidised lipids and lipoproteins.

The idea that lipids are simply structural components of cell membranes and sources of energy is outdated; instead, the role of lipids as signalling molecules in immune regulation has been understood and studied. At the same time, the effects of circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) on inflammation and tissue repair have also become a prominent avenue of research. EVs that are embedded in the extracellular matrix — called matrix-bound nanovesicles (MBVs) — are particularly important for enhancing proliferation and differentiation of stem and progenitor cells, promoting the activation of the anti-inflammatory macrophage phenotype. The combination of EVs and bioactive lipids is a promising but still largely unexplored approach in biomaterial design aimed at immune response modulation.

In this light, the authors describe the current state of knowledge in the field. They give a thorough review of the published liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) approaches that can be used to analyse lipids and their oxidation products; describe the immunomodulation and tissue regeneration signalling through free polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and their oxidation products; write about oxidised phospholipids playing a role as modulators of the inflammatory response; report on the phospholipid signatures of EVs; and discuss the hydrolysis of MBV-derived oxygenated lipids and their possible role in inflammation and tissue regeneration.

This chapter — and the whole book — will be very interesting to all researchers who work with biomaterials and plan to implement cutting-edge technologies.

The book can be accessed through its ISBN number: 978-0-12-821456-5 (online).