39 Aberrant lipid metabolism promotes the development of skeletal muscle insulin resistance, but 40 the exact identity of lipid-mediated mechanisms relevant to human obesity remains unclear. A 41 comprehensive lipidomic analyses of primary myocytes from lean insulin-sensitive (LN) and 42 obese insulin-resistant (OB) individuals revealed several species of lysophospholipids (lyso-PL) 43 that were differentially-abundant. These changes coincided with greater expression of 44 lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferase 3 (LPCAT3), an enzyme involved in phospholipid 45 transacylation (Lands cycle). Strikingly, mice with skeletal muscle-specific knockout of LPCAT3 46 (LPCAT3-MKO) exhibited greater muscle lyso-PC/PC, concomitant with greater insulin 47 sensitivity in vivo and insulin-stimulated skeletal muscle glucose uptake ex vivo. Absence of 48 LPCAT3 reduced phospholipid packing of the cellular membranes and increased plasma 49membrane lipid clustering, suggesting that LPCAT3 affects insulin receptor phosphorylation by 50 modulating plasma membrane lipid organization. In conclusion, obesity accelerates the skeletal 51 muscle Lands cycle, whose consequence might induce the disruption of plasma membrane 52 organization that suppresses muscle insulin action. 53Notably, the increase occurred at the level of the insulin receptor (IR), a node that is localized in 131 the phospholipid-rich plasma membrane. Consequently, LPCAT3 deletion enhanced insulin-132 stimulated glycogen synthesis ( Figure 2H), suggesting that this intervention increases skeletal 133 muscle insulin sensitivity in vitro (due to low GLUT4:GLUT1 stoichiometry, insulin-stimulated 134 glucose uptake is not an ideal surrogate for insulin sensitivity in C2C12 myotubes). LPCAT3 135 knockdown also enhanced insulin signaling in HSkMC from obese subjects ( Figure 2G). 136
137The organization and clustering of plasma membrane microdomains is linked to the induction of 138 tyrosine-kinase signaling events, such as IR signaling (29-31). Because LPCAT3 deletion 139