Unconventional membrane lipid biosynthesis in Xanthomonas campestris

All bacteria are surrounded by at least one bilayer membrane mainly composed of phospholipids (PLs). Biosynthesis of the most abundant PLs phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylglycerol (PG) and cardiolipin (CL) is well understood in model bacteria such as Escherichia coli. It recently emerged, however, that the diversity of bacterial membrane lipids is huge and that not yet explored biosynthesis pathways exist, even for the common PLs. A good example is the plant pathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris. It contains PE, PG and CL as major lipids and small amounts of the N-methylated PE derivatives monomethyl PE and phosphatidylcholine (PC = trimethylated PE). Xanthomonas campestris uses a repertoire of canonical and non-canonical enzymes for the synthesis of its membrane lipids. In this minireview, we briefly recapitulate standard pathways and integrate three recently discovered pathways into the overall picture of bacterial membrane biosynthesis.