Table 1.

Biomedical activity and application of fatty acids

Class	Name	Activity	Application	Ref.
Short-chain fatty acids	Propionic acid	Immunomodulatory effect on mature dendritic cells	Anti-inflammatory activity	Nastasi et al., 2015
		Enhance regulatory T cell metabolism and function	Multiple sclerosis	Duscha et al., 2020
		Alteration of bone marrow hematopoiesis	Allergic airway disease	Trompette et al., 2014
	Butyric acid	Microencapsulated butyric acid for regulation of microbiota (ButyRose)	Inflammatory bowel disease	Facchin et al., 2020
		Enhanced epithelial barrier function through IL-10 receptor	Inflammatory bowel disease	Zheng et al., 2017
		Alleviates mouse colitis by regulating gut microbiota dysbiosis	Inflammatory bowel disease	Dou et al., 2020
		Regulation of intestinal homeostasis through actin-associated protein synaptopodin	Inflammatory bowel disease	Wang et al., 2020
		Intestinal macrophage regulation via histone deacetylase inhibition	Inflammatory bowel disease	Chang et al., 2014
	Pentanoic acid	Inducing IL-10 production in lymphocytes by reprogramming their metabolic activity	Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis	Luu et al., 2019
Medium-chain fatty acids	Decanoic acid	Synergistic action against AMPA receptors and seizures with perampanel	Seizure control	Augustin et al., 2018a
		Inhibition of glutamate-induced currents derived from various types of AMPA receptor	Seizure control	Chang et al., 2016
Long-chain fatty acids	α-linolenic acid	Promoting bioconversion and subsequent oxylipin formation	High fat diet induced Insulin resistance	Fan et al., 2020
		Enhanced production of oxylipins in M1 macrophage	Anti-inflammatory activity	Pauls et al., 2018
		Activation of alternatively activated macrophages via oxylipin profile change	Anti-inflammatory activity	Pauls et al., 2020
		Modulation of phagocytosis and endosomal pathways of extracellular Tau in microglia	Alzheimer’s disease	Desale and Chinnathambi, 2021
		Alleviates dextran sulfate sodium-induced ulcerative colitis in mice	Inflammatory bowel disease	Kim et al., 2020
	Eicosapentaenoic acid	Improvement of hepatic metabolism and reduces inflammation in mice and HepG2 cells	Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease	Albracht-Schulte et al., 2019
		Inhibition NLRP3 inflammasome activation	Acute cerebral infarction (ACI)	Mo et al., 2020
	Docosahexaenoic acid	Enhanced M2 macrophage polarization via the p38 signaling pathway and autophagy	Chronic inflammation	Kawano et al., 2019
		Modulate monocyte inflammatory response	Chronic inflammation	So et al., 2021