Giovanni D'Angelo and Gioele La Manno present the concept of lipotypes, and suggest that lipid composition is an important regulator of cell fate.

Multicellular organisms consist of different cell types that emerge in response to instructive signals. New evidence suggests that lipid composition modulates cell response to signalling cues. Here we propose that cell variability in lipid composition assists the divergence of differentiation trajectories, leading to the establishment of several cell identities.