Crucial importance of length of fatty-acyl chains bound to the sn-2 position of phosphatidylglycerol for growth and photosynthesis of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803.

Phosphatidylglycerol (PG) in thylakoid membrane is essential for growth and photosynthesis of photosynthetic organisms. Although the sn-2 position of PG in thylakoid membrane is exclusively esterified with C fatty acids, the functional importance of the C fatty-acyl chains at the sn-2 position has not been clarified. In this study, we chemically synthesized non-metabolizable PG molecules: we introduced linoleic acid (18:2, fatty acid containing 18 carbons with 2 double bonds) and one of the saturated fatty acids with different chain length (12:0, 14:0, 16:0, 18:0 and 20:0) by ether linkage to the sn-1 and sn-2 positions, respectively.