The relationships between growth temperature, fatty acid composition and the physical state and fluidity of membrane lipids in Yersinia enterocolitica.

The relationship between membrane lipid composition and membrane lipid phase transitions was investigated in Yersinia enterocolitica cells grown at 5, 22 and 37 degrees C. The total phospholipid concentrations were 9.4, 7.3 and 6.3% of the cell dry weight for cells grown at 5, 22 and 37 degrees C, respectively. The relative concentrations of the three major phospholipids, phosphatidylethanolamine (73--76%), phosphatidylglycerol (9--11%) and cardiolipin (11--13%) were essentially the same at all three growth temperatures. The ratios of unsaturated to saturated fatty acids were 2.2, 1.1 and 0.4 for cells grown at 5, 22 and 37 degrees C, respectively. This change in the fatty acid composition in response to temperature changes is similar to the patterns reported for other organisms. Reversible thermotropic phase transitions were detected by calorimetric analysis in both pure lipid preparations and membrane preparations. The mid-points of the thermotropic phase transitions were at --13, --9 and 1 degree C for membranes from cells grown at 5, 22 and 37 degrees C, respectively. The phase transitions of the membranes from cells grown at the three different temperatures occurred below the lowest growth temperature (5 degrees C). The alternations in the fatty acid composition in Y. enterocolitica did not, therefore, appear to be required to adjust membrane fluidity but might rather be required for some other membrane function.