INCORPORATION OF AMINO-ALCOHOLS INTO PHOSPHOLIPIDS OF ADULT HOUSEFLY MUSCA DOMESTICA

Adult houseflies will incorporate amino-alcohols into their phospholipids replacing the naturally occurring phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphaticylcholine. As with housefly larvae fed on diets containing the unnatural amino-alcohols, the formation of large amounts of the corresponding phosphoryl derivative was demonstrated and also the amino-alcohol was shown to be present in the cytidinediphosphoryl-base fraction. This together with results on the relative specific radioactivities of the lipids and precursors labelled with 32P-orthophosphate strongly suggested that the unnatural amino-alcohols competed with the natural ethanolamine and choline for the enzymes involved in the cytidine nucleotide pathway of phospholipid synthesis and were not incorporated into phospholipid by an exchange reaction with the ethanolamine of presynthesized phosphatidylethanolamine. © 1969.