Dataset Information

Controlled growth of filamentous fatty acid vesicles under flow.

ABSTRACT: The earliest forms of cellular life would have required a membrane compartment capable of growth and division. Fatty acid vesicles are an attractive model of protocell membranes, as they can grow into filamentous vesicles that readily divide while retaining their contents. In order to study vesicle growth, we have developed a method for immobilizing multilamellar fatty acid vesicles on modified glass surfaces and inducing filamentous membrane growth under flow. Filament formation strictly depended on the presence of freshly neutralized fatty acid micelles in the flow chamber. Using light microscopy, we observed a strong dependence of initial growth velocity on initial vesicle size, suggesting that new fatty acid molecules were incorporated into the membrane over the entire external surface of the vesicle. We examined the influences of flow rate, fatty acid concentration, and salt concentration on filamentous growth and observed drastic shape changes, including membrane pearling, of preexisting membrane tubules in response to osmotic stress. These results illustrate the versatility of flow studies for exploring the process of fatty acid vesicle growth following exposure to free fatty acids.

SUBMITTER: Hentrich C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4985002 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Controlled growth of filamentous fatty acid vesicles under flow.

Hentrich Christian C Szostak Jack W JW

Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids 20141201 49

The earliest forms of cellular life would have required a membrane compartment capable of growth and division. Fatty acid vesicles are an attractive model of protocell membranes, as they can grow into filamentous vesicles that readily divide while retaining their contents. In order to study vesicle growth, we have developed a method for immobilizing multilamellar fatty acid vesicles on modified glass surfaces and inducing filamentous membrane growth under flow. Filament formation strictly depend ...[more]

PMID: 25402759

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundChloroplast and endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-localized fatty acid (FA) transporters have been reported to play important roles in oil (mainly triacylglycerols, TAG) biosynthesis. However, whether these FA transporters synergistically contribute to lipid accumulation, and their effect on lipid metabolism in microalgae are unknown.ResultsHere, we co-overexpressed two chloroplast-localized FA exporters (FAX1 and FAX2) and one ER-localized FA transporter (ABCA2) in Chlamydomonas. Under standard growth conditions, FAX1/FAX2/ABCA2 over-expression lines (OE) accumulated up to twofold more TAG than the parental strain UVM4, and the total amounts of major polyunsaturated FAs (PUFA) in TAG increased by 4.7-fold. In parallel, the total FA contents and major membrane lipids in FAX1/FAX2/ABCA2-OE also significantly increased compared with those in the control lines. Additionally, the total accumulation contribution ratio of PUFA, to total FA and TAG synthesis in FAX1/FAX2/ABCA2-OE, was 54% and 40% higher than that in UVM4, respectively. Consistently, the expression levels of genes directly involved in TAG synthesis, such as type-II diacylglycerol acyltransferases (DGTT1, DGTT3 and DGTT5), and phospholipid:diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1 (PDAT1), significantly increased, and the expression of PGD1 (MGDG-specific lipase) was upregulated in FAX1/FAX2/ABCA2-OE compared to UVM4.ConclusionThese results indicate that the increased expression of FAX1/FAX2/ABCA2 has an additive effect on enhancing TAG, total FA and membrane lipid accumulation and accelerates the PUFA remobilization from membrane lipids to TAG by fine-tuning the key genes involved in lipid metabolism under standard growth conditions. Overall, FAX1/FAX2/ABCA2-OE shows better traits for lipid accumulation than the parental line and previously reported individual FA transporter-OE. Our study provides a potential useful strategy to increase the production of FA-derived energy-rich and value-added compounds in microalgae.

Dataset Information

Controlled growth of filamentous fatty acid vesicles under flow.

Publications

Controlled growth of filamentous fatty acid vesicles under flow.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets