dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 46, number 19
July 10, 2020
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Abstracts
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Phospholipids containing ether-bound hydrocarbon-chains are essential
for efficient phagocytosis and neutral lipids of the ester-type perturb
development in Dictyostelium
Frederik Kappelt, Xiaoli Du Ma, Bassam Abou Hasna, Jessica M. Kornke
and Markus Maniak
Zellbiologie, Univ. Kassel, Germany
Biology Open, in press
Lipids are the building blocks for cellular membranes; they provide
signalling molecules for membrane dynamics and serve as energy
stores. One path of their synthesis is initiated by glycerol-3-phosphate
acyltransferase (GPAT), which in Dictyostelium resides on the
endoplasmic reticulum. When an excess of fatty acids is present, it
redistributes to storage organelles, the lipid droplets. Mutants, where
the GPAT was eliminated by homologous recombination, produce
fewer lipid droplets and are almost devoid of triacylglycerols (TAG),
rendering them more resistant to cell death and cell loss in the
developmental stages preceding fruiting body formation. The enzyme
most closely related to GPAT is called FARAT, because it combines
a fatty acyl-reductase (FAR) and an acyltransferase (AT) domain in its
sequence. The protein is confined to the lumen of the peroxisome,
where it transfers a fatty acid to dihydroxyacetone-phosphate initiating
the synthesis of ether lipids, later completed at the endoplasmic
reticulum. A mutant lacking FARAT produces lipid droplets that are
devoid of the storage lipid monoalkyl-diacyl-glycerol (MDG), but the
efficiency of spore formation in the developmental cycle is largely
unaltered. Instead, these mutants are strongly impaired in
phagocytosis of yeast particles, which is attributed to reduced
synthesis of membrane phospholipids containing ether-linked chains.
submitted by: Markus Maniak [[log in to unmask]]
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Two New Terpenes Isolated from Dictyostelium Cellular Slime Molds
Hitomi Sasaki, Yuzuru Kubohara , Hirotaka Ishigaki, Katsunori Takahashi,
Hiromi Eguchi, Akihiro Sugawara, Yoshiteru Oshima, Haruhisa Kikuchi
Molecules 2020, 25(12), 2895.
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25122895
We report a protoilludane-type sesquiterpene, mucoroidiol, and a
geranylated bicyclogermacranol, firmibasiol, isolated from Dictyostelium
cellular slime molds. The methanol extracts of the fruiting bodies of
cellular slime molds were separated by chromatographic methods to
give these compounds. Their structures have been established by
several spectral means. Mucoroidiol and firmibasiol are the first
examples of more modified and oxidized terpenoids isolated from cellular
slime molds. Mucoroidiol showed moderate osteoclast-differentiation
inhibitory activity despite demonstrating very weak cell-proliferation
inhibitory activity. Therefore, cellular slime molds produce considerably
diverse secondary metabolites, and they are promising sources of new
natural product chemistry.
submitted by: Haruhisa Kikuchi [[log in to unmask]]
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[End dictyNews, volume 46, number 19]
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