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Glycerol-derived membrane lipids are essentially absent in the thermophilic bacterium Thermomicrobium roseum. A series of straight chain and internally methyl-branched 1,2-diols of carbon numbers C(18) to C(23) were found to replace glycerolipids in this bacterium. Fatty acids were present but were ester-linked to the diols or amide-linked to polar heads groups and not to glycerol. This thermophile has evolved the integration of diols as a novel approach for the construction of its cytoplasmic membrane.
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Pond et al. (1986) studied this question.
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