Enable accurate analysis of lipids
Enable accurate analysis of lipids and free fatty acids
Lipids play multiple key roles in biological systems, including acting as secondary energy reserves, as components of membranes and participating in cell-signalling pathways. Aberration in levels of lipid and/or free fatty acids have been linked to several diseases. Consequently, the detailed analysis of lipids found in biological samples, e.g. lipidomics, is crucial for our understanding of disease mechanisms and progression, as well as for the development of treatment strategies. Levels of lipids and free fatty acids have been shown to change rapidly post-sampling and heat stabilization is a way of preventing these changes to enable analysis of levels closer to in vivo.
By heat stabilizing your samples, you will immediately eliminate enzymatic activity and ex vivo lipolysis that otherwise causes rapid accumulation of free fatty acids. Heat stabilization stops degradation and changes, immediately and permanently, whereas snap freezing leads to post sampling effects during sample handling and preparation.
Lipid analysis in brain and liver tissue samples. Levels of free fatty acids are much higher in snap frozen samples (SF) compared to heat-stabilized (HS) due to contiued lipase activity and subsequent release of free fatty acids.