title: The SwissLipids knowledgebase for lipid biology.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Lipids are a large and diverse group of biological molecules with roles in membrane formation, energy storage and signaling. Cellular lipidomes may contain tens of thousands of structures, a staggering degree of complexity whose significance is not yet fully understood. High-throughput mass spectrometry-based platforms provide a means to study this complexity, but the interpretation of lipidomic data and its integration with prior knowledge of lipid biology suffers from a lack of appropriate tools to manage the data and extract knowledge from it.
  
  
  RESULTS
  To facilitate the description and exploration of lipidomic data and its integration with prior biological knowledge, we have developed a knowledge resource for lipids and their biology-SwissLipids. SwissLipids provides curated knowledge of lipid structures and metabolism which is used to generate an in silico library of feasible lipid structures. These are arranged in a hierarchical classification that links mass spectrometry analytical outputs to all possible lipid structures, metabolic reactions and enzymes. SwissLipids provides a reference namespace for lipidomic data publication, data exploration and hypothesis generation. The current version of SwissLipids includes over 244 000 known and theoretically possible lipid structures, over 800 proteins, and curated links to published knowledge from over 620 peer-reviewed publications. We are continually updating the SwissLipids hierarchy with new lipid categories and new expert curated knowledge.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  SwissLipids is freely available at http://www.swisslipids.org/.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  alan.bridge@isb-sib.ch
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
authors.affiliation: Swiss-Prot Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CMU, 1 rue Michel-Servet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Lucila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Aimo
authors.affiliation: Vital-IT, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Quartier Sorge, Bâtiment Génopode, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liechti
authors.affiliation: Swiss-Prot Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CMU, 1 rue Michel-Servet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Nevila
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hyka-Nouspikel
authors.affiliation: Swiss-Prot Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CMU, 1 rue Michel-Servet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Niknejad
authors.affiliation: Swiss-Prot Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CMU, 1 rue Michel-Servet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gleizes
authors.affiliation: Vital-IT, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Quartier Sorge, Bâtiment Génopode, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Lou
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Götz
authors.affiliation: Vital-IT, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Quartier Sorge, Bâtiment Génopode, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Dmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kuznetsov
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Core Facility, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Fabrice P A
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: David
authors.affiliation: Global Health Institute, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 19, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: F Gisou
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: van der Goot
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland, Switzerland National Centre of Competence in Research "Chemical Biology", University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland and.
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Riezman
authors.affiliation: Swiss-Prot Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CMU, 1 rue Michel-Servet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Lydie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bougueleret
authors.affiliation: Swiss-Prot Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CMU, 1 rue Michel-Servet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland, Vital-IT, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Quartier Sorge, Bâtiment Génopode, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, Department of Biochemistry, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland, Centre for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Xenarios
authors.affiliation: Swiss-Prot Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, CMU, 1 rue Michel-Servet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bridge
mesh_terms: D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D051188:Knowledge Bases; D050356:Lipid Metabolism; D008055:Lipids / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids