Fig. 1 |. Enzyme-free synthesis of natural phospholipids.

a, De novo synthesis of diacylphospholipids in water leading to an in situ self-assembled membrane. LPC, lysophosphatidylcholine; PC, phosphatidylcholine. The leaving group is shown in red; the structures of r¹ are shown in panel c. b, The proposed reaction intermediate. c, reactive fatty acyl derivatives: acyl donors 2 (0.75 mM), with which reactions were carried out with 1-oleoyl-2-hydroxy-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine 1a (0.5 mM) in the presence of Na₂CO₃/NaHCO₃ buffer (pH = 10.6) at 37 °C for 5 h.