{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]],"date-time":"2026-10-08T12:52:40Z","timestamp":1791463960408,"version":"4.3.4"},"reference-count":52,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"19","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]],"date-time":"2026-10-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1791417600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]],"date-time":"2026-10-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1791417600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100007414","name":"Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research at Qassim University","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["QU-APC-2026"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["QU-APC-2026"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100007414","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["QU-APC-2026"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["QU-APC-2026"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01wsfe280","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Foods"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Egg yolk is often treated in the functional-food literature as a single, compositionally uniform fat depot, but this simplification obscures its actual structure: the yolk is a compartmentalized lipid system in which egg-yolk lipids are distributed between a triglyceride-dominant, low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) plasma fraction and a phospholipid-enriched, high-density-lipoprotein (HDL) granule fraction. Prior reviews of egg-yolk lipid bioactivity, extraction methodology, and flavor chemistry have generally addressed these topics as separate studies; here, molecular architecture, extraction and characterization, gastrointestinal digestion and bioaccessibility, human bioavailability and metabolic fate, health outcomes, and technological functionality are synthesized as stages of a single pathway. The compositional asymmetry between the LDL plasma fraction and the HDL granule fraction is well established, and differences in their emulsifying behavior are supported by the technological literature; divergent metabolic effects of the isolated fractions have so far been shown only in animal models, whereas differences in digestion kinetics are inferred from structure and remain a working hypothesis because direct experimental comparison of the digestion of isolated HDL and LDL fractions is still lacking. On the human evidence side, a single randomized crossover trial in 18 healthy adults found a higher plasma choline response to phospholipid-bound choline than to choline delivered as a synthetic salt, a preliminary finding that awaits replication, while two crossover studies found no significant postprandial rise in plasma cholesterol area under the curve after whole-egg intake. Because this is an indirect, postprandial measure rather than a direct assessment of intestinal absorption, it is consistent with, but does not establish, limited cholesterol absorption from the whole-egg matrix, and whether whole-egg cholesterol should be distinguished from isolated dietary cholesterol exposure in the epidemiological literature remains a hypothesis. Large prospective meta-analyses report that egg and dietary cholesterol intake associate modestly with elevated all-cause and cancer mortality, but not with cardiovascular-disease-specific mortality or events; these observational associations describe health outcomes and do not, on their own, test a mechanistic distinction between whole-egg cholesterol and isolated dietary cholesterol absorption. Extraction and delivery-system technology for egg phospholipids is more advanced than commonly assumed, with pilot-scale supercritical-fluid purification already achieved and egg-yolk phosphatidylcholine reported to show formulation-specific advantages over soybean phosphatidylcholine in individual liposome studies, although these studies differ in cargo, preparation method, and outcome measures. This delivery-system evidence, however, remains at the level of isolated liposome formulations; finished food products incorporating egg-phospholipid liposomes, with accompanying sensory or consumer-acceptance validation, have not yet been reported. The principal barriers to validated functional-ingredient status are correspondingly narrower than a general shortfall in bioactivity or functionality evidence: a direct human bioavailability comparison between whole egg and an isolated egg-phospholipid ingredient, and dedicated techno-economic and life-cycle assessment of egg-lipid extraction, remain the two outstanding gaps.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/foods15193564","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]],"date-time":"2026-10-08T11:26:53Z","timestamp":1791458813000},"page":"3564","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Egg-Derived Lipids and Phospholipids as Emerging Functional Ingredients: Molecular Structure, Bioavailability, Metabolic Effects, and Food Applications"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8631-792X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Osama K.","family":"Abou-Emera","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Animal and Poultry Production, College of Agriculture and Food, Qassim University, Buraydah 51452, Saudi Arabia"},{"name":"Department of Poultry Breeding Research, Animal Production Research Institute, Agriculture Research Centre, Dokki, Giza 12618, Egypt"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mohammed","family":"Aladhadh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, College of Agriculture and Food, Qassim University, Buraydah 51452, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1948","DOI":"10.1021\/acs.jafc.9b06616","article-title":"Biological Activities of Egg Yolk Lipids: A Review","volume":"68","author":"Xiao","year":"2020","journal-title":"J. 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