Three enzyme systems for galactoglycerolipid biosynthesis are coordinately regulated in plants.

Galactoglycerolipids, in which galactose is bound at the glycerol sn-3 position in O-glycosidic linkage to diacylglycerol, are abundant in plants and photosynthetic bacteria, where they constitute the bulk of the polar lipids of the photosynthetic membranes. Galactoglycerolipid biosynthesis in plants is highly compartmentalized involving enzymes at the endoplasmic reticulum and the two chloroplast envelopes. This peculiar organization requires extensive trafficking of lipid precursors. It is now increasingly apparent that there are three different sets of lipid galactosyltransferases capable of galactoglycerolipid biosynthesis in the model plant Arabidopsis. Two enzymes, MGD1 and DGD1, provide the bulk of galactoglycerolipids in the chloroplast and in photosynthetic tissues in general. Under phosphate-limited growth conditions and in non-photosynthetic tissues MGD2/3 and DGD2 are highly active. Moreover, galactoglycerolipids produced by this second pathway are often found in extraplastidic membranes. Although these galactosyltransferases use UDP-Gal as the galactose donor, a third pathway involves a processive enzyme, which transfers galactose from one galactolipid to another.