Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

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.

The specific objectives of this discovery program are:
1)- To characterize cellular phenotypes associated with the independent effects of three different n-3 PUFAs (ALA, EPA and DHA) in immune cells. Extensive cellular phenotyping will be used to determine and compare effects of different n-3 PUFAs.
2)- To relate cellular phenotypes to the activation of specific cellular mechanisms in immune cells using gene expression and functional analyses. Gene expression analyses will be used to identify specific effects of the different n-3 PUFAs on cellular mechanisms and to highlight n-3 PUFA-dependent cellular mechanisms. Functional analyses will be used to link cellular phenotypes to gene expression profiles.

This research program will lead to a better knowledge of the effects of n-3 PUFAs on cellular phenotypes and molecular mechanisms. It will contribute to elucidate the underlying mechanisms explaining cellular and molecular changes attributable to each n-3 PUFAs. Our study will pave the way for studies on the biological effects at the cellular and molecular levels of other bioactive lipids. Globally, it will speed up research field focusing on the effects of individual food components through the development of an analysis platform easily adaptable to various food components and different cellular models. This is likely to impact at population levels through an influence on food development industry and the development of prevention/therapeutic approaches.