LIPID MAPS online tools for lipid research

• Published in: Nucleic acids research Vol. 35; no. Web Server issue; pp. W606 - W612
• Main Authors: Fahy, Eoin, Sud, Manish, Cotter, Dawn, Subramaniam, Shankar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Oxford University Press 01.07.2007
• Subjects: Computational Biology - methods; Databases, Factual; Glycosphingolipids - chemistry; Humans; Internet; Isomerism; Lipid Metabolism; Lipids - chemistry; Lipids - classification; Models, Chemical; Molecular Conformation; Polysaccharides - chemistry; User-Computer Interface
• ISSN: 0305-1048; 1362-4962
• DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkm324

The LIPID MAPS consortium has developed a number of online tools for performing tasks such as drawing lipid structures and predicting possible structures from mass spectrometry (MS) data. A simple online interface has been developed to enable an end-user to rapidly generate a variety of lipid chemical structures, along with corresponding systematic names and ontological information. The structure-drawing tools are available for six categories of lipids: (i) fatty acyls, (ii) glycerolipids, (iii) glycerophospholipids, (iv) cardiolipins, (v) sphingolipids and (vi) sterols. Within each category, the structure-drawing tools support the specification of various parameters such as chain lengths at a specific sn position, head groups, double bond positions and stereochemistry to generate a specific lipid structure. The structure-drawing tools have also been integrated with a second set of online tools which predict possible lipid structures from precursor-ion and product-ion MS experimental data. The MS prediction tools are available for three categories of lipids: (i) mono/di/triacylglycerols, (ii) glycerophospholipids and (iii) cardiolipins. The LIPID MAPS online tools are publicly available at www.lipidmaps.org/tools/.