In this study we analyzed the membrane lipid composition of "Candidatus Nitrosopumilus maritimus," the only cultivated representative of the cosmopolitan group I crenarchaeota and the only mesophilic isolate of the phylum Crenarchaeota. The core lipids of "Ca. Nitrosopumilus maritimus" consisted of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) with zero to four cyclopentyl moieties. Crenarchaeol, a unique GDGT containing a cyclohexyl moiety in addition to four cyclopentyl moieties, was the most abundant GDGT. This confirms unambiguously that crenarchaeol is synthesized by species belonging to the group I.1a crenarchaeota. Intact polar lipid analysis revealed that the GDGTs have hexose, dihexose, and/or phosphohexose head groups. Similar polar lipids were previously found in deeply buried sediments from the Peru margin, suggesting that they were in part synthesized by group I crenarchaeota.

Phosphatidylcholine (PC), a major lipid class in the membranes of eukaryotes, is synthesized either via the triple methylation of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) or via the CDP-choline route. To investigate whether the two biosynthetic routes contribute differently to the steady-state profile of PC species, i.e., PC molecules with specific acyl chain compositions, the pools of newly synthesized PC species were monitored by labeling Saccharomyces cerevisiae with deuterated precursors of the two routes, (methyl-D3)-methionine and (D13)-choline, respectively. Electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) revealed that the two PC biosynthetic pathways yield different sets of PC species, with the CDP-choline route contributing most to the molecular diversity. Moreover, yeast was shown to be capable of remodeling PC by acyl chain exchange at the sn-1 position of the glycerol backbone. Remodeling was found to be required to generate the steady-state species distribution of PC. This is the first study demonstrating a functional difference between the two biosynthetic routes in yeast.

To study the consequences of depleting the major membrane phospholipid phosphatidylcholine (PC), exponentially growing cells of a yeast cho2opi3 double deletion mutant were transferred from medium containing choline to cholinefree medium. Cell growth did not cease until the PC level had dropped below 2% of total phospholipids after four to five generations. Increasing contents of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylinositol made up for the loss of PC. During PC depletion, the remaining PC was subject to acyl chain remodeling with monounsaturated species replacing diunsaturated species, as shown by mass spectrometry. The remodeling of PC did not require turnover by the SPO14-encoded phospholipase D. The changes in the PC species profile were found to reflect an overall shift in the cellular acyl chain composition that exhibited a 40% increase in the ratio of C16 over C18 acyl chains, and a 10% increase in the degree of saturation. The shift was stronger in the phospholipid than in the neutral lipid fraction and strongest in the species profile of PE. The shortening and increased saturation of the PE acyl chains were shown to decrease the nonbilayer propensity of PE. The results point to a regulatory mechanism in yeast that maintains intrinsic membrane curvature in an optimal range. INTRODUCTIONPhosphatidylcholine (PC) is an abundant glycerophospholipid present in the membranes of eukaryotic cells. Apart from being a major structural component of all organellar membranes, it serves as a reservoir of signaling molecules (Exton, 1994;Kent and Carman, 1999), and it has been implicated in apoptosis (Cui and Houweling, 2002). In the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae, mutations in the genes encoding PC biosynthetic enzymes lead to respiratory deficiency (Griac et al., 1996), indicating that PC is important for mitochondrial function. PC was found to interact with Gut2p, the mitochondrial glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, in a photolabeling study (Janssen et al., 2002). Furthermore, the biosynthesis of PC is involved in the regulation of intracellular vesicle trafficking in yeast (reviewed in Howe and McMaster, 2001).The triple methylation of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), catalyzed by the methyltransferases Cho2p (Pem1p) and Opi3p (Pem2p), is the primary route for the synthesis of PC in yeast in the absence of exogenous choline (Carman and Henry, 1999). When choline is supplied in the growth medium, the CDP-choline pathway contributes to the net synthesis of PC (Figure 1). However, also in the absence of choline, the CDP-choline pathway contributes to PC synthesis using (phospho)choline derived from the turnover of PC (McMaster and Bell, 1994). Electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) in combination with stable isotope labeling revealed that the two biosynthetic routes produce the PC molecular species, i.e., PC molecules with specific acyl chains, in different ratios (Boumann et al., 2003).Whereas the biosynthesis of PC and its regulation have been extensively characterized (Carman...

Anammox bacteria present in wastewater treatment systems and marine environments are capable of anaerobically oxidizing ammonium to dinitrogen gas. This anammox metabolism takes place in the anammoxosome which membrane is composed of lipids with peculiar staircase-like 'ladderane' hydrocarbon chains that comprise three or four linearly concatenated cyclobutane structures. Here, we applied high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry to elucidate the full identity of these ladderane lipids. This revealed a wide variety of ladderane lipid species with either a phosphocholine or phosphoethanolamine polar headgroup attached to the glycerol backbone. In addition, in silico analysis of genome data gained insight into the machinery for the biosynthesis of the phosphocholine and phosphoethanolamine phospholipids in anammox bacteria.

In yeast, the aminoalcohol phosphotransferases Ept1p and Cpt1p catalyze the final steps in the CDP-ethanolamine and CDP-choline routes leading to phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylcholine (PC), respectively. To determine how these enzymes contribute to the molecular species profiles of PE and PC in vivo, wild-type, cpt1D, and ept1D cells were pulse labeled with deuterated ethanolamine and choline. Analysis of newly synthesized PE and PC using electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry revealed that PE and PC produced by Ept1p and Cpt1p have different species compositions, demonstrating that the enzymes consume distinct sets of diacylglycerol species in vivo. Using the characteristic phospholipid species profiles produced by Ept1p and Cpt1p as molecular fingerprints, it was also shown that in vivo CDP-monomethylethanolamine is preferentially used as substrate by Ept1p, whereas CDP-dimethylethanolamine and CDP-propanolamine are converted by Cpt1p.