Dynamic Lipidomic Responses to Inflammation and Physical Insult: A Comparative Review Across Blunt Force Trauma, Thermal Burn Injury, and Viral Infection

In this comparative review, we evaluate existing literature to delineate convergent and divergent lipid and lipoprotein signatures that underpin systemic inflammatory responses to acute insult and injury.These events include acute injuries arising from external blunt force or thermal exposure, as well as pathogenic infection.Such insults trigger a systemic inflammatory response aimed at limiting further tissue damage.This response is accompanied by profound metabolic changes that produce distinct biochemical signatures detectable through advanced analytical platforms.Characterising these signatures offers valuable insights into the metabolic mechanisms that drive inflammation following acute injury or infection.Whilst studies have reported on such metabolic alterations, findings are often fragmented across disciplines, making it unclear whether the systemic response to injury is consistent or divergent, depending on the type of insult.A consolidated review is therefore required to identify common patterns, highlight context specific differences, and expose gaps in the current understanding.In this comparative review, we focus on metabolic phenotyping approaches applied to blood plasma and serum, with an emphasis on lipid and lipoprotein profiling using mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.We present exemplar case studies from diverse insult types, including traumatic brain injury, burn injury, and a common respiratory viral infection (SARS-CoV-2), to illustrate how lipid and lipoprotein perturbations manifest depending on the type of insult.Notable examples include palmitic acid (16:0), which was found to be consistently elevated across all three con-