S4
Membrane Lipids in the Life of Organisms
Organizers:
Paul L Else (University of Wollongong, Australia)
Edouard Kraffe (Univ. Bretagne Occidentale, France)
The image of membrane lipids as balls with two sticks poking out organized in two perfectly opposing rows (the bilayer) with ‘protein icebergs’ is far away from the dynamic environment that lipids in membranes represent. This image dates back ~40 years when Singer and Nicholson proposed the ‘Fluid Mosaic Model of Membranes’. Since then research has progressed rapidly from understanding the lipid structure of membranes and types of lipids that make it, to the properties of lipids and how these influence membrane properties. More recently the focus has been on the functional consequences of the non-random distribution of lipids across the bilayer and structures such as ‘rafts’, and most recently on how these simple molecules serve as signal compounds. In comparative physiology and biochemistry research has largely been dominated by understanding relationships between membrane lipid composition and organismal adaptation, diet, phylogeny, body size and life history. In this symposium our speakers will tackle a broad range of topics begining with aspects of lipid-protein interactions in adaptive examples that include estivation in African lungfish, salinity changes experienced by salmonid fish and the effects of membrane composition and fluidity on carnitine palmitoyltransferase in a rainbow trout model. Other speakers examine complex lipid structures originating from marine invertebrates and how they can provide information on bivalve predatory feeding habits, phylogeny and their evolutionary history in highly variable environments. Finally, differences in membrane phospholipid species due to changes in mammalian body size and how membrane lipid acyl composition may impact upon the longevity of species are examined.
Speakers:
Paul L Else and Edouard Kraffe: Welcome and Brief Introduction
– General overview of some of the roles lipids play in life’s processes –
1) James S Ballantyne (Dept. Integrative Biol., Univ. Guelph, Ontario Canada)
Decoupling membrane lipid/protein interactions: an adaptive strategy.
2) Grant B McClelland, Chris Le Moine and Andrea Morash (Dept. Biol., McMaster Univ., Canada)
Genomic and nongenomic regulation of mitochondrial fat oxidation.
3) Natalie V Zhukova (Inst. Marine Biol., Far East Branch of Russian Acad. Sci., Vladivostok, Russia)
Unusual fatty acid composition of marine nudibranch mollusks: Mirror of feeding and bacterial symbiosis.
4) Edouard Kraffe1, Fabienne Le Grand1,2, Philippe Soudant3, Yanic Marty1 (1Univ. Bretagne Occidentale, France, 2GEPEA UMR-CNRS, Univ. Nantes, France, 3Inst. Univ. Européen de la Mer, France)
Cardiolipin and plasmalogens in marine mollusk bivalves – contributions to resistance and adaptation to prevailing environmental conditions.
5) Paul L Else, Jessica Nealon, Todd W Mitchell and Colin Cortie (Metabolic Res. Centre, School of Health Sci., Univ. Wollongong, Australia)
Changes in membrane phospholipid composition in mammalian tissues with body mass and a potential secret of cardiolipin
6) Megan A Kelly
and Anthony J Hulbert (School of Biol. Sci., Univ. Wollongong, Australia)
Membrane lipids and longevity: insights from vertebrates and invertebrates.