The preparation and properties of lysophosphatidylserine.

Although lysolecithin has been frequently prepared and has been the subject of much research, other lysophosphatides have not been studied in detail. Our interest in nervous tissue led us to use human brain as the starting material from which phosphatidylserine-rich fractions were prepared by the method of Folch (1942). Long & Penny (1957) demonstrated that the phosphatidylserine-containing fraction of ox brain was slowly attacked by the venom of the cottonmouth moccasin in an ethereal solution in the presence of Ca2+ ions. In the present work, however, phosphatidylserine was readily converted into lysophosphatidylserine by cottonmouth-moccasin venom in the 2,4,6-collidine-ether system described by Magee & Thompson (1960).