Effects of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on cellular phenotypes and molecular mechanisms.

脂肪酸（FA）是一种食物成分，传统上被认为是几种生物体内参与能量产生和储存的中间代谢物。它们也是细胞膜的重要组成部分。现在已经非常清楚，它们可以通过各种机制影响细胞功能。包括我们在内的几个研究小组已经报道，使用鱼油胶囊补充omega-3多不饱和脂肪酸（n-3 PUFA）对心血管健康有益，并显著改变各种人体组织的基因表达。由于n-3 PUFAs是通过饮食或作为胶囊中的纯化提取物补充获得的，因此很难研究每种n-3 PUFAs的独立作用，也很难阐明它们的组织和细胞特异性作用。我们的研究计划旨在通过开发一个平台来评估FAs影响的细胞表型和分子机制，特别是来自植物（α -亚麻酸（ALA））和海洋（二十碳五烯酸（EPA）和二十二碳六酸（DHA））来源的n-3 PUFAs，从而建立脂质介质作用机制的知识。

Fatty acids (FA) are food components traditionally thought to represent intermediary metabolites involved in energy production and storage in several living organisms. They are also important components of cell membranes. It has now become very clear that they can influence cell function through a variety of mechanisms. Several research groups including ours have reported that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) supplementation using fish oil capsules have beneficial effects on cardiovascular health and substantially alter gene expression in various human tissues. As n-3 PUFAs are obtained through diet or as purified extracts in capsules for supplementation, it is difficult to study the independent effect of each n-3 PUFAs and to elucidate their tissue- and cell-specific effects. Our research program aims to build knowledge on the mechanism of action of lipid mediators through the development of a platform to assess cellular phenotypes and molecular mechanisms influenced by FAs, and particularly of n-3 PUFAs from vegetal (alpha linolenic acid (ALA)) and marine (eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA)) sources.