Bioactive Lipid Mediators Core (BLMC)

The Bioactive Lipid Mediators Core (BLMC) is designed to support the ongoing work of affiliated scientists aiming to understand the systemic and neurophysiological outcomes of chronic drug use on lipid signaling. The focus on lipid biomarkers targets an emerging field that has unique promise to add a novel framework for understanding how lipid signaling in a wide range of tissues (e.g., plasma, CNS, liver, breast milk) is related to homeostatic dysregulation associated with the development and maintenance of drug use disorders. The Bradshaw lab has developed lipid extraction and analytical techniques aimed specifically at small molecule lipid metabolites like the endocannabinoids, lipoamines, prostaglandins, leukotrienes, and resolvins. These classes of lipids of have been shown to change in response to exposure to drugs of abuse and understanding this regulation has the potential to provide unique insight into how both acute and chronic drug use drives both systemic and central nervous system changes. This understanding would then drive the discovery of novel therapies to treat drug addiction. We will accomplish this by 1) Evaluation of plasma lipidomics patterns in multiple drug abuse models. Using animal models of drug use (THC, opioids, alcohol) we will use our optimized analytical techniques for analysis of bioactive lipid metabolite signaling molecules in plasma to determine how acute and chronic drug exposure causes systemic changes in these lipid classes. This analysis technique will then be used to determine how endogenous cannabinoid and related lipid signaling molecules changes in different disease states (PTSD, concussion, drug addiction) in human plasma. 2) Analyze sex difference in bioactive lipids in in targeted areas of the CNS with chronic drug use as a function of genetic sex. This will provide a novel framework to evaluate unique characteristics across and between drug models and sex. 3) Identification of changes in bioactive lipids in breast milk with exposure to drugs of abuse (THC, opioids). Lipidomics analysis of breastmilk in rodent models of drug use (THC, opioids) will provide a clearer understanding on how the presence of these drugs changes the lipid profile of breastmilk in a way that may have long term health consequences for offspring. 4) Develop data science analytical techniques of bioactive lipid metabolites to drive novel hypotheses on how drugs of abuse cause changes in systemic and CNS lipid signaling. Coupling the power of increasingly powerful analytical techniques with novel data mining and cluster analyses developed in-house will provide the field with new tools for interpreting lipid metabolomic information. 5) Increase the pipeline for IU undergraduate students to advance directly into STEM careers with a focus on mastering lipidomic, mass spectrometric, and bioinformatic techniques. Through this program, IU undergraduate students will be provided unique opportunities for training and research that are tailored to the field of lipidomics and mass spectrometry as well as multiple programmatic opportunities for professional development.