Choline glycerophospholipids

The main component of this group is the diacyl derivative:

1,2-diacyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphorylcholine or phosphatidylcholine or lecithin.

Phosphatidylcholine is abundant in all cell extracts, it frequently forms about half of all membrane phospholipids in animal preparations. In animal cells, the fatty acid from the 1-position is frequently 16:0 and that from the 2-position is 18:1 or 18:2, exceptionally more unsaturated fatty acids are found. Choline has a pK near 13.9 and produces a polar head group with a strong zwitterionic character over the entire pH range.
While the diacyl form is the most abundant, other forms can be found in cell extracts.

A graphical chart of the biosynthesis of phosphatidylcholine may be found on the BioCarta web site.

A novel family of oxidized phosphatidylcholine was shown to serve as ligands for the macrophage scavenger receptor CD36 (Podrez EA et al., J Biol Chem 2002, 277, 38503). These structures were shown to derived from phosphatidylcholine molecules having C16:0 at the sn-1 position and either C18:2n-6, C20:4n-6 or C22:6n-3 at the sn-2 position. Thus, the active species on CD36 have been identified to have an sn-2 acyl group that incorporates a terminal g-hydroxy (or oxo)-a,b-unsaturated carbonyl (alcohol or aldehyde group). As an example, the species shown below is generated from oxidation of a docosahexaenoic acid ester. The compounds generated from different precursors are similar except for the chain length of the truncated oxidized fatty acid at the sn-2 position.

These oxidized phosphatidylcholine species are likely involved in the CD36-mediated recognition of oxidized lipoproteins and foam cell formation in vivo.
It was shown that a phosphatidylcholine species with esterified sn-2-azelaidic acid was the most common phospholipid oxidation product of oxidized low density lipoprotein (Tokumura A et al., Lipids 1996, 31, 1251). It is noteworthy that oxidized LDL levels in carotid plaque are 70-fold greater than circulating levels (Nishi K et al., Artherioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 2002, 22, 1649). It was further demonstrated that these phospholipid oxidation products target intracellular mitochondria to activate the intrinsic apoptotic cascade (Chen R et al., J Biol Chem 2007, 282, 24842).

It was later shown that molecular species possessing a fatty acyl hydroxyalkenal group can undergo a slow transformation into a novel oxidized species with a sn-2 acyl group incorporating a terminal furan moiety (Gao S et al., J Biol Chem 2006, 281, 31298). One of these species is shown below.

These derivatives were shown to be generated at sites of enhanced oxidant stress, such as within brain tissues. This was the first reported description of furan-containing phospholipids as endogenous products in a mammalian system. In contrast to their hydroxyalkenal precursors, these furan derivatives lack CD36 binding activity.

The alk-1-enyl-acyl derivatives (1-alk-1'-enyl-, 2-acyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphorylcholine) are also named choline plasmalogen. As the first carbon of glycerol is linked to the carbon chain through a -C-O-C=C- vinyl ether bond, these lipids are known as ether-linked lipids or ether lipids. The vinyl ether bond is acid labile. This form is present in appreciable quantity in some tissues as heart muscle (up to 40% of choline glycerophospholipids), in seminal fluid, and in smaller amounts in nervous system, platelets or red blood cells. The presence of this type of lipid was detected around 1930 by Feulgen in histological sections where a positive reaction with the fuchsine-sulfurous acid reagent was observed in the cellular cytoplasm. The detected aldehyde was formed from the broken vinyl ether bond, the rest of the molecule giving a lyso-phospholipid (1-lyso 2-acyl phospholipid). This reaction was mainly due to the more abundant ethanolamine plasmalogen. Choline plasmalogen was the first aldehydogenic lipid to be isolated in a pure form (Gottfried et al., Fed Proc , 1961, 20, 278).

Here is shown the 2-lysophosphatidylcholine produced by phospholipase A2 hydrolysis. This action is intimately associated with the signal transduction pathway in all types of cells (an unsaturated fatty acid is liberated and may be metabolized in various derivatives by other enzymes). A phospholipase A1 is able to cleave the sn-1 ester bond and generate a 1-lysocompound. These enzymes are used to study the phospholipid structure.

Lysophosphatidylcholine was also shown to be a selective chemoattractant for mononuclear leukocytes (Quinn MT et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1988, 85, 2805) and to be a pathological component of oxidized LDL in plasma (Parthasarathy S et al., Atheriosclerosis 1989, 9, 398) and of atherosclerotic lesions (Portman OW et al., J Lipid Res 1969, 10, 158).
More recently, it was reported that lysophosphatidylcholine was able to promote mature dendritic cell generation through G protein-coupled receptors on differentiating monocytes (Coutant F et al., J Immunol 2002, 169, 1688). This new cell signalling process opens perspectives for the understanding and treatment of acute and chronic inflammatory diseases.

Sulfonium analog of phosphatidylcholine

A phosphatidylcholine analog containing a sulfur atom replacing the nitrogen atom of choline has been described in marine diatoms and algae (Bisseret P et al., Biochim Biophys Acta 1984, 796, 320). Thus, only two methyl groups are present at the end of the polar head : - S⁺(CH₃)₂ instead of - N⁺(CH₃)₃ . Furthermore, this phosphatidylsulfocholine, discovered in the diatom Nitzschia alba, completely replaces phosphatidylcholine in this species (Anderson R et al., Biochim Biophys Acta 1978, 528, 77). Methionine was shown to supply the S atom as well as both methyl groups of the dimethyl sulfonium moiety of the molecule.