Abstract
Galactolipids represent the predominant membrane lipid class in plants. In general, galactolipids are restricted to plastids, but during phosphate deficiency, they also accumulate in extraplastidial membranes. Two groups of plants can be distinguished based on the presence of a specific fatty acid, hexadecatrienoic acid (16:3), in chloroplast lipids. Plants that contain galactolipids with 16:3 acids are designated “16:3-plants”; the other group of plants which lack 16:3 contain mostly 18:3 in their galactolipids (“18:3-plants”). The methods in this chapter describe the extraction of membrane lipids from whole leaves, or from subcellular fractions, and their analysis via thin-layer chromatography (TLC) with different staining methods. Furthermore, a protocol for membrane lipid quantification is presented starting with the separation via TLC, transmethylation of the isolated lipids to fatty acid methyl esters, and their quantitative analysis via gas chromatography (GC).
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Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the help of Anna Moseler (University of Bonn) with TLC and GC of leaf and root samples. This work was supported by the grants Ho3870/1-2 and Do520/9 (Forschungsschwerpunkt 1212) of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
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Wewer, V., Dörmann, P., Hölzl, G. (2013). Analysis and Quantification of Plant Membrane Lipids by Thin-Layer Chromatography and Gas Chromatography. In: Munnik, T., Heilmann, I. (eds) Plant Lipid Signaling Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1009. Humana, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-401-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-401-2_8
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