Table 2.

Tissue-specific expression patterns of ELOVL family members and key roles in lipid metabolism

ELOVL family member	Tissue expression	Notable tissues & functions	References
ELOVL1	Highly expressed in the skin	Maintains skin barrier function and sphingolipid levels	Isokawa et al. [20]
ELOVL2	Widespread expression in various tissues	Brain, liver, adipose tissue; involvement in multiple metabolic pathways	Slieker et al. [57]
ELOVL3	Highly elevated in BAT	Involved in BAT recruitment, prolonged cold exposure maintains elevated expression	Jörgensen et al. [21]
ELOVL4	Predominantly expressed in the retina	Essential for the synthesis of very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids for proper vision	Barabas et al. [2]
ELOVL5	Detected in several human tissues	Highest levels in testis and testis and epididymis due to high docosapentanoic acid (22:5n–6)	Castellini et al. [6]
ELOVL6	Ubiquitously expressed, especially in lipid-rich tissues	Found in BAT, WAT, and liver	Iizuka et al. [18]
ELOVL7	Expressed in most tissues except heart and skeletal muscle	High in pancreas, kidney, prostate, colon; low in lung, ovary, spleen, thymus	Ohno et al. [45]

BAT, brown adipose tissue; WAT, white adipose tissue