Homeostatic control of membrane lipid biosynthesis in bacteria

Abstract

The synthesis and the homeostatic control of lipid biosynthesis is an essential feature of bacterial physiology and membrane biogenesis. Although the studies of individual phospholipids and their synthesis began in 1920 first in plants and then mammal, it was not until the early 1960 that were initiated studies in bacterial lipid metabolism in Escherichia coli. This fundamental research provided the basis to understand the biochemistry and regulation of bacterial lipid synthesis. Although the lipid biosynthetic pathways are conserved in bacteria there are notably differences in the gene organization, gene regulation and biochemical control of the enzymes that perform these reactions in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. In this chapter we examine this diversity to provide a timely overview of lipid synthesis and membrane homeostasis in prokaryotes.