Bacterial ceramide synthesis (Caulobacter vibrioides)

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This pathway depicts the bacterial ceramide synthesis; bacteria are known to produces various groups of sphingolipids. This lipid class holds several physiological functions. In the human microbiome, commensal and pathogenic bacteria use sphingolipids to mimic the inflammatory system of the host.

Several key eukaryotic ceramide synthesis enzymes have no bacterial homologue, which creates a challenge in understanding their biosynthetic pathway(s).

Sphingolipids have only been measured in a few bacterial taxa (e.g. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Pichia pastoris)[PMID:29863195] and with great variety of acyl chain length and hydroxylation, headgroups, and the saturation degree. All of these variables influence the role of a sphingolipid on the host system and are therefore important to study in different bacteria.

This pathway uses the example of C. Vibriodes (supported by BridgeDb and Ensembl); the publication describing this pathway was originally written for C. crescentus [PMID:34969973]; identifiers for data analysis might be found through the CauloBrowser tool [PMID:26476443].