The Biosynthesis of Phosphatidic Acid and Lysophosphatidic Acid by Glyceride Phosphokinase Pathways in Escherichia Coli.

Phosphatidic acid has been given a key position in the scheme of animal lipid metabolism because of its ability to serve as a presursor of a variety of animal lipids. The recent reports of the biosynthesis of phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylglycerol (1, 2) in Escherichia coli and other bacteria suggest that phosphatidic acid (in the coenzyme form, cytidine diphosphate diglyceride) will also be an important precursor of bacterial lipids. This suggestion prompted a study of the biosynthesis of phosphatidic acid in cell free systems of E. coli. The result,s to be reported in this paper demonstrate that particulate preparations of E. coli readily catalyze the phosphorylation of diglyceride by adenosine triphosphate to form cy-phosphatidic acid in a typical phosphokinase reaction.1