BIOL 2020 Lecture Notes - Sphingosine, Phospholipid, Glycerol
Document Summary
Short chain length and cis unsaturation enhance the fluidity of fatty acids and of their derivatives. A gram of nearly anhydrous fat stores more than six times as much energy as a gram of hydrated glycogen. The platform on which phospholipids are built may be glycerol, a threecarbon alcohol, or sphingosine, a more complex alcohol. Phospholipids built on a sphingosine backbone are called sphingolipids. Sphingosine is an amino alcohol that contains a long, unsaturated hydrocarbon chain (figure. Sphingomyelin is a common sphingolipid found in membranes. In sphingomyelin, the amino group of the sphingosine backbone is linked to a fatty acid by an amide bond.
