Overview

• The approach quantifies lipid exchange between organelles in mammalian cells and delivers the first quantitative map of intracellular lipid transport.
• Analysis and modeling indicate 85–95% of inter‑organelle movement is non‑vesicular and carried by specific transfer proteins.
• Protein‑driven transfer proceeds about ten times faster than vesicle trafficking and sorts individual lipid species with high selectivity.
• The pipeline couples minimally modified, UV‑crosslinkable bifunctional lipids with standard fluorescence microscopy, AI‑assisted segmentation, and ultra‑high‑resolution mass spectrometry.
• Published by a Dresden‑ and Prague‑based team in Nature, the work outlines next steps to identify the responsible proteins and the energy sources that power this rapid transport.