Synthesis of a photocleavable bola-phosphatidylcholine

Phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins (PITPs) are ubiquitous in eukaryotes and are involved in the regulation of phospholipid metabolism, membrane trafficking, and signal transduction. Sec14 is a yeast PITP that has been shown to transfer phosphatidylinositol (PI) or phosphatidylcholine (PC) from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi. It is now believed that Sec14 may play a greater role than just shuttling PI and PC throughout the cell. Genetic evidence suggests that retrieval of membrane-bound PI by Sec14 also manages to present PI to the phosphatidylinositol-4-kinase, Pik1, to generate phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate, PI(4)P. To test this hypothetical model, we designed a photocleavable bolalipid to span the entire membrane, having one phosphatidylcholine or phosphatidylinositol headgroup on each leaflet connected by a photocleavable diacid. Sec14 should not be able to present the bola-PI to Pik1 for phosphorylation as the head group will be difficult to lift from the bilayer as it is tethered on the opposite leaflet. After photocleavage the two halves would behave as a normal phospholipid, thus phosphorylation by Pik1 would resume. We report here the synthesis of a photocleavable bola-PC, a precursor to the desired bola-PI. The mono-photocleavable bola-PC lipid was designed to contain two glycerol molecules with choline head groups connected through a phosphodiester bond at the sn3 position. Each glycerol was acylated with palmitic acid at the sn1 position. These two glycerol moieties were then connected through their respective sn2 hydroxyls via a photocleavable dicarboxylic acid containing a nitrophenyl ethyl photolabile protecting group. The bola-PC and its precursors were found to undergo efficient photocleavage when irradiated in solution or in vesicles with 365 nm light for two minutes. Treatment of the bola-PC with a mutant phospholipase D and myo-inositol produced a mono-inositol bola-PC-PI.