Figure 1.

A schematic overview of how homeostatic control mechanisms might occur in phospholipid biosynthesis, showing the biophysical concepts of membrane order, spontaneous curvature and stored elastic energy. A simplified phospholipid biosynthetic pathway, where PC, PE, PI, PA, PS and DAG are phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidic acid, phosphatidylserine and diacylglycerol lipids, respectively, is also shown. Membrane bound proteins involved in lipid biosynthesis, which can sense and regulate the biophysical properties of the membrane, the environmental contributions to lipid composition and health implications of understanding lipid biosynthesis are also summarized.