What are phosphoacylglycerols?

What are phosphoacylglycerols?

It is possible for one of the alcohol groups of glycerol to be esterified by a phosphoric acid molecule rather than by a carboxylic acid. In such lipid molecules, two fatty acids are also esterified to the glycerol molecule. The resulting compound is called a phosphatidic acid (Figure 8.4a). Fatty acids are usually monoprotic acids with only one carboxyl group able to form an ester bond, but phosphoric acid is triprotic and thus can form more than one ester linkage. One molecule of phosphoric acid can form ester bonds both to glycerol and to some other alcohol, creating a phosphatidyl ester (Figure 8.4b).

Phosphatidyl esters are classed as phosphoacylglycerols. The natures of the fatty acids vary widely, as they do in triacylglycerols. As a result, the names of the types of lipids (such as triacylglycerols and phosphoacylglycerols) that contain fatty acids must be considered generic names.

The classification of a phosphatidyl ester depends on the nature of the second alcohol esterified to the phosphoric acid. Some of the most impor-tant lipids in this class are phosphatidyl ethanolamine (cephalin), phosphatidylserine, phosphatidyl choline (lecithin), phosphatidyl inositol, phosphatidyl glycerol, and diphosphatidyl glycerol (cardiolipin) (Figure 8.5). In each of these types of compounds, the nature of the fatty acids in the molecule can vary widely. 

All these compounds have long, nonpolar, hydrophobic tails and polar, highly hydrophilic head groups and thus are markedly amphipathic. (We have already seen this characteristic in fatty acids.) In a phosphoacylglycerol, the polar head group is charged, because the phosphate group is ionized at neutral pH. A positively charged amino group is also frequently contributed by an amino alcohol esterified to the phosphoric acid. Phosphoacylglycerols are important components of biological membranes.