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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Sep 20.
Published in final edited form as: Biochemistry. 2011 Aug 24;50(37):7858–7867. doi: 10.1021/bi2011527

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Structures of representative lipids from different domains of life. Cholesterol and sphingolipids such as sphingomyelin are found primarily in eukaryotes. Phosphatidylcholine is among the most common glycerophospholipids of higher eukaryotes, but is less common in bacteria (and is absent in E. coli). Phosphatidylethanolamine is common both in bacteria and eukaryotes. Glucosyldiglyceride and related neutral glycoglycerolipids are the often the most common lipids of plants. Cardiolipin is common in bacteria and in the mitochondria of eukaryotes. Ether-linked isoprenoid lipids such as those exemplified by the bottom and far right lipids dominate the membraned of thermophilic archaebacteria (50, 62).