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RSS FeedsThe work of Konrad Bloch`s laboratory on unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis in bacteria [Microbiology] (Journal of Biological Chemistry)

 
 

11 october 2019 10:00:06

 
The work of Konrad Bloch`s laboratory on unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis in bacteria [Microbiology] (Journal of Biological Chemistry)
 


Lipids are ubiquitous molecules, serving as the structural building blocks for membranes, messengers in cell signaling, or compounds for energy storage. Their functional versatility relies in part on the presence of one or more double bonds in the long lipid carbon chains. The more double bonds there are in a lipid, the more unsaturated it is; and the more unsaturated lipids there are in a membrane, the more flexible the membrane tends to be. Cells take advantage of this property by fine-tuning the levels of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in membranes to external conditions and required membrane function.Many organisms, including humans, produce unsaturated fatty acids by desaturating saturated fatty acids, as Rudolf Schoenheimer and David Rittenberg reported in the 1930s working with mammalian cells (1) and Konrad Bloch and Daniel Bloomfield showed in the 1960s studying yeast (2). When it comes to making unsaturated fatty acids, cells growing in the presence of molecular oxygen have an advantage; they can use this powerful oxidant to insert a double bond into a fatty acid chain via a dehydrogenation reaction. But what about organisms that cannot grow in the presence of molecular oxygen?This question piqued the curiosity of Bloch, who had a longstanding interest in oxygen as a biosynthetic reagent and was also aware that molecular oxygen is toxic to some microorganisms. In the 1950s, he had taken a summer course taught by the eminent microbiologist Cornelius van Niel. The course acquainted Bloch with many microorganisms, including obligately anaerobic bacteria that thrive...


 
175 viewsCategory: Biochemistry
 
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