Figure 1.
Schematic presentation of a mitochondrion. Shown are the inner membrane (1), outer membrane (2) and cristae (3). The transacylase tafazzin (4) prefers to interact with lipid monolayers that have negative curvature (shown in magnified membrane region). Phospholipids with diunsaturated linoleic acid chains selectively enrich in negatively curved monolayers. The selective action of tafazzin on those highly curved regions results in enrichment of the cardiolipin fraction with linoleic acid chains.