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Evidence for a homogeneous lateral distribution of lipids in a bacterial membrane
Author(s) -
de Bony J.,
Martin G.,
Welby M.,
Tocanne J.F.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(84)81065-0
Subject(s) - phosphatidylglycerol , phosphatidylinositol , anthracene , diacylglycerol kinase , chemistry , membrane , phospholipid , chromatography , biochemistry , biophysics , photochemistry , phosphatidylcholine , biology , enzyme , protein kinase c , kinase
A new photo cross‐linking method has been developed for the study of the lateral distribution of lipids in natural membranes, which uses anthracene as a photoactivable group. This method, which rests on the potentiality of anthracene to form covalently bound dimers upon irradiation around 340–380 nm has been applied to the membrane lipids (dimannosyl diacylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol) of the bacterium Micrococcus luteus . These glyco‐ and phospholipids were anthracene labelled by metabolically incorporating the synthetic 9‐(2‐anthryl)nonanoic acid. The following sequential procedure was used: (i) dimerization of the anthracene‐labelled lipids in the membrane by irradiation of the intact cells at 360 nm; (ii) extraction of the lipids and thin‐layer chromatography in the first dimension to separate the various lipid dimers from the monomers; (iii) partial dedimerization of the lipid dimers by illumination of the chromatogram at around 250–280 nm; (iv) chromatography in the second dimension to separate the native lipid monomers from the corresponding residual lipid dimers. On account of the occurrence of the 3 hetero dimers phosphatidylglycerol‐dimannosyl diacylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol‐dimannosyl diacylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol‐phosphatidylinositol after irradiating the cells, it is concluded that in this bacterial membrane, dimannosyl diacylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylinositol are homogeneously distributed.