THE SPATIAL-DISTRIBUTION OF PHOSPHOLIPIDS AND GLYCOLIPIDS IN THE MEMBRANE OF THE BACTERIUM MICROCOCCUS-LUTEUS VARIES DURING THE CELL-CYCLE

Recently, we have developed a photocrosslinking approach which uses an thracene as a photoactivatable group and which allows us to determine the lateral distribution of lipids in membranes quantitatively. In syn chronous cultures of the gram-positive bacterium Micrococcus luteus, t his approach shows that the spatial distribution of phosphatidylglycer ol and dimannosyldiacylglycerol, the two major lipids in the bacterial membrane, varies greatly during the cell cycle, Minimum heterogeneity was observed during cell growth while maximum heterogeneity was detec ted during cell division.