Unraveling environmental pollutant-induced lipid metabolism disorders: Emerging insights from lipidomic studies in fish models.

The pervasive disruption of lipid metabolism by environmental pollutants represents a critical interface between chemical exposure and metabolic health. Lipidomics, a rapidly advancing branch of metabolomics, has emerged as a powerful tool to comprehensively characterize these disruptions, offering unprecedented insights into the molecular mechanisms of toxicity. This review provides a critical synthesis of recent lipidomics-driven investigations into pollutant-induced lipid metabolic disorders using fish models. We systematically catalog the alterations in lipid signatures triggered by diverse environmental contaminants. Beyond descriptive summary, we emphasize the unique capability of lipidomics to reveal organ-specific toxicity and to decipher underlying molecular initiating events, such as perturbations in glycerophospholipid biosynthesis, sphingolipid metabolism, and fatty acid β-oxidation. We also discussed factors affecting lipid metabolism disorders induced by pollutants in fish. A significant portion of our discussion is dedicated to current methodological challenges, from lipid extraction and detection to data analysis, which constrain the full potential of lipidomics. Finally, we propose a forward-looking research framework that advocates for the integration of multi-omics approaches, dynamic flux analysis, ecological relevance in exposure modeling, and the development of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs). This work aims not only to consolidate current knowledge but also to stimulate methodological innovation and guide future mechanistic research in environmental lipidomics.