HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: R700018-JLR200v1 49/8/1607    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Schlame, M. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Schlame, M. Social Bookmarking                      What's this?

Journal of Lipid Research, Vol. 49, 1607-1620, August 2008
Copyright © 2008 by American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Thematic Review

Thematic Review Series: Glycerolipids. Cardiolipin synthesis for the assembly of bacterial and mitochondrial membranes^*

Michael Schlame¹

Departments of Anesthesiology and Cell Biology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016

^* Research in the author's laboratory has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (Grant R01 HL-078788), the American Heart Association (Grant 0350126N), and the Barth Syndrome Foundation.

Published, JLR Papers in Press, December 12, 2007.

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: michael.schlame{at}med.nyu.edu

In this article, the formation of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cardiolipin is reviewed in light of its biological function. I begin with a detailed account of the structure of cardiolipin, its stereochemistry, and the resulting physical properties, and I present structural analogs of cardiolipin that occur in some organisms. Then I continue to discuss i) the de novo formation of cardiolipin, ii) its acyl remodeling, iii) the assembly of cardiolipin into biological membranes, and iv) the degradation of cardiolipin, which may be involved in apoptosis and mitochondrial fusion. Thus, this article covers the entire metabolic cycle of this unique phospholipid. It is shown that mitochondria produce cardiolipin species with a high degree of structural uniformity and molecular symmetry, among which there is often a dominant form with four identical acyl chains. The subsequent assembly of cardiolipin into functional membranes is largely unknown, but the analysis of crystal structures of membrane proteins has revealed a first glimpse into the underlying principles of cardiolipin-protein interactions. Disturbances of cardiolipin metabolism are crucial in the pathophysiology of human Barth syndrome and perhaps also play a role in diabetes and ischemic heart disease.

Supplementary key words tafazzin • mitochondrial biogenesis • phospholipids • molecular species

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?