Serinophospholipids: A Third Type of Natural Phospholipid Discovered in a Thermophilic Bacterium

Phospholipids are an essential constituent of cells with all life thought to produce these compounds with either a glycerol or sphingoid moiety at their core. For the first time, we demonstrate that a thermophilic bacterium, NGM72.4 , produces a third type of phospholipid, serinophospholipids, which are distinct from glycero- and sphingophospholipids by featuring a serinol backbone instead. We show that the major serinophospholipid metabolites are , -diacylserinophospho- -methylethanolamine and , -diacylserinophosphoethanolamine, and that serinophospholipids constitute up to 38% of the phospholipid mass. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these metabolites are further differentiated from "traditional" bacterial glycerophospholipids by their backbone configuration. In contrast to bacterial glycerophospholipids, which have an -glycerol-3-phosphate (G3P) architecture, the newly discovered serinophospholipids have an ( )-configured serinol core that is equivalent to the glycerol-1-phosphate (G1P) arrangement characteristic of Archaea.