Washington University School of Medicine Digital Commons@Becker Open Access Publications 2018 Structural and functional roles of ether lipids John M. Dean Irfan J. Lodhi Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/open_access_pubs Protein Cell 2018, 9(2):196–206 DOI 10.1007/s13238-017-0423-5 Protein & Cell REVIEW Structural and functional roles of ether lipids John M. Dean, Irfan J. Lodhi& Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Lipid Research, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO 63110, USA & Correspondence:
[email protected] (I. J. Lodhi) Received March 15, 2017 Accepted April 25, 2017 ABSTRACT found in the brain, heart, spleen, and white blood cells, while Cell liver has scant amount of intracellular ether lipids (Braver- Ether lipids, such as plasmalogens, are peroxisome- & man and Moser, 2012). derived glycerophospholipids in which the hydrocarbon Plasmalogens are the most common form of ether lipids chain at the sn-1 position of the glycerol backbone is and are characterized by a cis double bond adjacent to the attached by an ether bond, as opposed to an ester bond ether linkage. Plasmalogens were serendipitously discov- in the more common diacyl phospholipids. This seem- ered in 1924 by Feulgen and Voit while staining tissue sec- ingly simple biochemical change has profound struc- Protein tions with a nuclear stain that reacts with aldehydes released tural and functional implications. Notably, the tendency by acid hydrolysis of DNA (Snyder, 1999). Because the acid of ether lipids to form non-lamellar inverted hexagonal treatment also resulted in breakdown of the vinyl ether bond structures in model membranes suggests that they have of plasmalogens to generate aldehydes, the researchers a role in facilitating membrane fusion processes.