The increase in our aging population presents a need for research on healthy aging. Here, we present work examining the role of ceramide and sphingomyelin metabolism on aging. Ceramide, which can be synthesized de novo or by recycling from sphingomyelin, is a sphingolipid that is important in responding to oxidative stress. Furthermore, it is known that ceramide levels increase with age, making ceramide an important lipid mediator of aging. We utilized C. elegans' mutants lacking acid sphingomyelinase (
asm-3) and ceramide synthase (
hyl-2), which are previously found to be long- and short-lived, respectively. We performed a lipidomic analysis to explore longitudinal changes in lipid concentrations in wild type (N2) worms at 1, 5, and 10 days of age, compared to long-lived worm models (
eat-2/mAChR and
asm-3/acid sphingomyelinase) as well as short-lived worm models (
daf-16/FOXO and
hyl-2/ceramide synthase). Among our samples, we detected 700 different lipids, including fatty acids and sphingomyelins. Interestingly, 10-day old
hyl-2 mutants, which have a reduced life-span, showed an increased concentration of the putative omega-3 fatty acid, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which has been shown to increase with longevity in worms. Conversely,
asm-3 mutants, which are long-lived animals, have reduced levels of EPA. To expand upon our lipidomic data with enzymatic findings, we utilized RT-qPCR analysis to longitudinally analyze fatty acid desaturases (
fat-1 and
fat-4) involved in EPA metabolism in worms. We found that
fat-4 expression is reduced in 1, 5, and 10 day
hyl-2 animals, suggesting that ceramide metabolism may impact fatty acid genes involved in aging. Further work will examine the role of fatty acid tail elongases (
elo-5 and
elo-6) in
hyl-2 and
asm-3 mutant animals. This analysis will better define the intrinsic biochemical lipid processes associated with ceramide metabolism in aging animals.