TY - JOUR
T1 - Phospholipid tail asymmetry allows cellular adaptation to anoxic environments
AU - Panconi, Luca
AU - Lorenz, Chris D
AU - May, Robin C
AU - Owen, Dylan M
AU - Makarova, Maria
N1 - Funding Information:
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council ( EPSRC ), Centre for doctoral Training in Topological Design (L. P.), via our membership of the UK's HEC Materials Chemistry Consortium, which is funded by EPSRC ( EP/R029431 ), this work used the UK Materials and Molecular Modelling Hub for computational resources, MMM Hub, which is partially funded by EPSRC ( EP/T022213 ), ONI Inc (L. P.), ISSF award Wellcome Trust grant (M. M.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023
PY - 2023/9/1
Y1 - 2023/9/1
N2 - Membrane biophysical properties are critical to cell fitness and depend on unsaturated phospholipid acyl tails. These can only be produced in aerobic environments since eukaryotic desaturases require molecular oxygen. This raises the question of how cells maintain bilayer properties in anoxic environments. Using advanced microscopy, molecular dynamics simulations, and lipidomics by mass spectrometry we demonstrated the existence of an alternative pathway to regulate membrane fluidity that exploits phospholipid acyl tail length asymmetry, replacing unsaturated species in the membrane lipidome. We show that the fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces japonicus, which can grow in aerobic and anaerobic conditions, is capable of utilizing this strategy, whereas its sister species, the well-known model organism Schizosaccharomyces pombe, cannot. The incorporation of asymmetric-tailed phospholipids might be a general adaptation to hypoxic environmental niches.
AB - Membrane biophysical properties are critical to cell fitness and depend on unsaturated phospholipid acyl tails. These can only be produced in aerobic environments since eukaryotic desaturases require molecular oxygen. This raises the question of how cells maintain bilayer properties in anoxic environments. Using advanced microscopy, molecular dynamics simulations, and lipidomics by mass spectrometry we demonstrated the existence of an alternative pathway to regulate membrane fluidity that exploits phospholipid acyl tail length asymmetry, replacing unsaturated species in the membrane lipidome. We show that the fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces japonicus, which can grow in aerobic and anaerobic conditions, is capable of utilizing this strategy, whereas its sister species, the well-known model organism Schizosaccharomyces pombe, cannot. The incorporation of asymmetric-tailed phospholipids might be a general adaptation to hypoxic environmental niches.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85169501760&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jbc.2023.105134
DO - 10.1016/j.jbc.2023.105134
M3 - Article
C2 - 37562570
SN - 0021-9258
VL - 299
SP - 105134
JO - The Journal of biological chemistry
JF - The Journal of biological chemistry
IS - 9
M1 - 105134
ER -