This Nature Reviews Endocrinology article by Armella Zadoorian, Ximing Du and Hongyuan Yang surveys the current understanding of lipid droplets — intracellular organelles increasingly recognized for far more than energy storage — covering how they are made and the physiological and pathological roles they play.
The authors highlight droplet biogenesis as a response that helps cells weather stress, examine involvement in conditions from hepatic steatosis to cancer and viral infection, and discuss emerging therapeutic strategies that target droplet formation, growth, or breakdown.