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Lipid A

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Biogenesis of Fatty Acids, Lipids and Membranes

Part of the book series: Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology ((HHLM))

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Abstract

Diverse lipid A structures have been observed in a multitude of Gram-negative bacteria, but the metabolic logic of lipid A biosynthesis is widely conserved. This chapter will start by describing the nine constitutive enzymes of the Raetz pathway, which catalyze conserved lipid A biosynthetic reactions that depend on cytoplasmic cofactors. Concomitant with lipid A export and assembly on the cell surface, a number of regulated covalent modifications of lipid A can occur in the extracytoplasmic compartments. The narrow phylogenetic distribution of the lipid A modification enzymes, combined with the diverse regulatory signals governing their expression, is responsible for most of the lipid A structural diversity that is observed in nature. By focusing on E. coli as a model system, the general principles of lipid A biosynthesis and assembly are revealed to inform related processes that occur in more divergent organisms.

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Acknowledgments

Work in the author’s laboratory was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. We apologize to those authors whose work could not be cited due to space limitations.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Russell E. Bishop

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  1. Russell E. Bishop
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Correspondence to Russell E. Bishop .

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  1. Centro de Ciencias Genomicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Centro de Ciencias Genomicas, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

    Otto Geiger

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Bishop, R.E. (2016). Lipid A. In: Geiger, O. (eds) Biogenesis of Fatty Acids, Lipids and Membranes. Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43676-0_10-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43676-0_10-1

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