Mapping current research status and emerging frontiers of lipidomics: a comprehensive data-mining-based study.

BACKGROUND

Lipids are crucial biomolecules involved in various biological processes, with changes in lipid profiles closely linked to the development of multiple disorders. Recent advances in lipidomics have transformed our understanding of lipid metabolism, yet challenges remain, highlighting the need for a comprehensive bibliometric study to identify current research status and emerging frontiers in this rapidly evolving field.

METHODS

This study collected publications related to lipidomics from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Bibliometric visualization was conducted using VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and an online analytical platform. A variety of bibliometric methods were employed, including co-authorship analysis, co-occurrence analysis, co-citation analysis, cluster analysis, and burst detection.

RESULTS

A total of 7989 papers including 6961 research articles and 1028 review papers were identified. Over the past two decades, the annual number of publications on lipidomics has shown an overall increasing trend (R = 0.933). In terms of contributors, the United States and China have maintained their prominence, with the highest output and the most financial support. At the institutional and individual levels, the University of California System and professor Han Xianlin produced the largest number of papers related to lipidomics. By analyzing the trends in disciplinary flow, this study reveals the increasingly close relationship between fields such as molecular biology, genetics, and clinical medicine, as well as materials science. Obesity was the most studied disease in this domain, followed by Alzheimer's disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, as well as metabolic syndrome. Keywords analysis reveals that the current research focus in the field centered around omics approaches in lipidomics, inflammation and oxidative stress, biomarkers and diagnostic applications, analytical techniques of lipidomics, and lipid metabolism and disease mechanisms. And in the future, the following topics including lipid metabolism and disease pathology, microbiome and lipid interactions, ferroptosis and lipid peroxidation, emerging therapeutic approaches and technologies, as well as technological advancements in lipidomics, are continuing to receive sustained attention.

CONCLUSIONS

This bibliometric analysis, for the first time, provides a detailed overview of the knowledge structure and highlights the evolving research trends in lipidomics over the past two decades. The systematic summary offers a clear and comprehensive understanding of lipidomics, and also deliver valuable perspectives for future research in this field.