Metabolism of phospholipids in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Abstract

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe is an important model organism for the study of fundamental questions in eukaryotic cell and molecular biology. A plethora of cellular processes are membrane associated and/or dependent on the proper functioning of cellular membranes. Phospholipids are not only the basic building blocks of cellular membranes; they also serve as precursors to numerous signaling molecules.In this review, we describe the biosynthetic pathways leading to major S. pombe phospholipids, how these pathways are regulated, and what is known about degradation and turnover of fission yeast phospholipids. This review also addresses the synthesis, regulation and the role of water-soluble phospholipid precursors. The last chapter of the review is devoted to the use of S. pombe for the biotechnological production of value-added lipid molecules.

Metabolism of Storage Lipids and the Role of Lipid Droplets in the Yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

“…We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of S. pombe in lipid biotechnology and current achievements in using S. pombe in biotechnological production of valuable single-cell oils. This review complements the recent review on the metabolism of FA and PL in the fission yeast S. pombe (Holic et al, 2020). We hope it will provide a reference in attempts to understand the participation of lipids in essential eukaryotic cellular processes using the fission yeast S. pombe as a model organism.…”

“…Synthesis of TAG, on the contrary, takes place mainly in the late exponential and stationary growth phases and represents the formation of the storage form of FA. PtdOH phosphatase controls the relative proportions of its substrate PtdOH and product DAG (for more information on S. pombe PtdOH phosphatases see recent review by Holic et al (2020)). Both lipid species, PL and TAG, contain FA as essential components.…”

“…Dephosphorylation of PtdOH to DAG is the crucial enzymatic step in TAG synthesis. This reaction is catalyzed by the PtdOH phosphatase encoded by ned1 ( SPAC1952.13 ) in the fission yeast S. pombe (Holic et al, 2020; Tange et al, 2002). In the final step, TAG is formed via transferring the acyl chain from acyl‐CoA to DAG by diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) (Bell and Coleman, 1980).…”

“…A very strong sporulation defect was observed in the cho1Δ and cho2Δ mutants. The cho1 gene encodes phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine and phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine methyl transferases (Kanipes et al, 1998); the cho2 gene encodes phosphatidylethanolamine methyl transferase (Holic et al, 2020; Kanipes and Henry, 1997). These methyltransferases are required for the conversion of phosphatidylethanolamine to phosphatidylcholine via the CDP‐DAG (also called methylation) pathway.…”

“…Phosphatidylserine can be further decarboxylated to phosphatidylethanolamine. Phosphatidylethanolamine then undergoes three sequential methylation reactions to be converted to phosphatidylcholine, the first of which is catalyzed by the cho2 ‐encoded phosphatidyl methyltransferase, while the final two methylations are catalyzed by the cho1 ‐encoded PL methyltransferase (for review see Holic et al (2020)). Detailed analysis showed that these two mutants are defective in the conjugation process to generate diploid cells (Blyth et al, 2018).…”