Phosphorylation of yeast glycerol 3‐phosphate acyltransferase Gpt2 regulates the timing of TAG synthesis and lipid droplet morphology

Abstract

Glycerol‐3‐phosphate acyltransferases catalyze the acylation of glycerol‐3‐phosphate at the sn‐1 position yielding 1‐acyl glycerol‐3‐phosphate (lyso‐phosphatidic acid). This is the first and rate limiting reaction in de‐novo synthesis of phosphatidic acid (PA), the key intermediate for the formation of all glycerophospholipids and triacylglycerols. In all eukaryotic organisms glycerol‐3‐phosphate acyltransferases as well as acyltransferases catalyzing the subsequent acylation reaction converting lyso‐PA to PA occur in redundancy. This led to the hypothesis that isoenzymes are forming different PA pools which supply different pathways. In the model organism yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae two glycerol‐3‐phosphate acyltransferases have been identified, Gpt2 (Gat1) and Sct1 (Gat2). Most recently we demonstrated the important role of Gpt2 (but not Sct1) in cells challenged by oleic acid as the only carbon source. Whereas growth in oleic acid containing medium induced massive lipid particle accumulation in wild‐type cells, cells lacking GPT2 failed to accumulate these storage compartments of triacylglycerols and other non‐polar lipids, exhibited a strong growth defect and cell viability was significantly reduced. We were intrigued by the fact that the intracellular distribution of Gpt2 and its phosphorylation status changed under these growth condition compared to growth on glucose containing medium. We have identified several phosphorylation sites in Gpt2 by mass spectrometry, which are localized to a serine rich region in the carboxy‐terminus of the protein. Serine to alanine or to aspartate mutations as well as deletion of the serine rich region containing these residues, were introduced in the yeast genome to investigate the role of phosphorylation in the regulation of Gpt2. Importantly, all phosphorylation mutants were able to support life of cells lacking Sct1, indicating these mutants are functional. We show that manipulations of Gpt2 phosphorylation status strongly and specifically affect TAG accumulation, but not metabolism of the most abundant glycerophospholipids during late log phase of growth. Importantly, alterations in the TAG content are accompanied by marked changes in lipid droplet morphology in the respective mutants. Altogether our results support a role for Gpt2 phosphorylation in regulating the timing of TAG synthesis and lipid droplet morphology.Support or Funding InformationThis work has been financially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (to VZ and BS) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF; Project P21251 to KA).