Making Sense of the Yeast Sphingolipid Pathway.
Sphingolipids (SL) and their metabolites play key roles both as structural components of membranes and as signaling molecules. Many of the key enzymes and regulators of SL metabolism were discovered using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and based on the high degree of conservation, a number of mammalian homologs were identified. Although yeast continues to be an important tool for SL research, the complexity of SL structure and nomenclature often hampers the ability of new researchers to grasp the subtleties of yeast SL biology and discover new modulators of this intricate pathway. Moreover, the emergence of lipidomics by mass spectrometry has enabled the rapid identification of SL species in yeast and rendered the analysis of SL composition under various physiological and pathophysiological conditions readily amenable. However, the complex nomenclature of the identified species renders much of the data inaccessible to non-specialists. In this review, we focus on parsing both the classical SL nomenclature and the nomenclature normally used during mass spectrometry analysis, which should facilitate the understanding of yeast SL data and might shed light on biological processes in which SLs are involved. Finally, we discuss a number of putative roles of various yeast SL species.
Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel; Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
Márton
M
Megyeri
Department of Biochemistry and NCCR Chemical Biology, University of Geneva, Geneva, 1211, Switzerland.
Howard
H
Riezman
Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel. Electronic address: maya.schuldiner@weizmann.ac.il.
Maya
M
Schuldiner
Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
Anthony H
AH
Futerman
D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism*; D013107:Sphingolipids / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D009626:Terminology as Topic
D013107:Sphingolipids
Saccharomyces cerevisiae; classification; nomenclature; sphingolipids; yeast