Abstract:
Fatty acids are the building blocks of diverse membrane lipids and therefore are essential for the viability of all cells, except the Archaea where side chains of membrane lipids are isoprenoids. There are multiple examples of fatty acid-derived molecules as signal compounds for communication of cell-to-cell among prokaryotes in one species, interspecies, or even interkingdom (i.e., between prokaryotes and eukaryotes). Fatty acid biosynthesis is catalyzed in most bacteria by a group of highly conserved proteins known as the type II fatty acid synthase (FASII) system. A key protein in this system is the acyl carrier protein (ACP) which acts as carrier of growing acyl chains during biosynthesis and as donor of acyl chains during transfer to target molecules. The Escherichia coli FAS II system is the model pathway of fatty acid biosynthesis in bacteria and mainly the same set of enzymes is present in different bacteria. Variations of the basic set give rise to the diversity of fatty acid composition of each organism. The intrinsic specificity of the acyltransferases is largely responsible for the fatty acid composition of complex lipids and signals molecules.
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López-Lara, I.M., Geiger, O. (2010). Formation of Fatty Acids. In: Timmis, K.N. (eds) Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_26
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