Homeostatic regulation of intrinsic lipid curvature in eukaryotic cells

Cell membranes are composed of both bilayer-supporting and non-bilayer phospholipids, with the latter’s negative intrinsic curvature aiding in membrane trafficking and the dynamics of membrane proteins. Phospholipid metabolism has long been recognized to maintain membrane fluidity, but whether it also acts to maintain the function of high-curvature lipids is not resolved. Here, we find that cells grown under hydrostatic pressure – used to artificially reduce lipid curvature – maintain lipidome curvature through metabolic acclimation. We first observed that manipulation of the lipidome curvature via the phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) to phosphatidylcholine (PC) ratio affects high-pressure growth and viability of yeast independently of membrane fluidity. In wild-type cells, X-ray scattering measurements revealed an increased propensity for lipid extracts to form non-lamellar phases after extended pressure incubations. Unexpectedly, this change in phase behavior was not due to increased levels of PE, but of phosphatidylinositol (PI), the only major phospholipid class whose curvature had not been previously characterized. We found that PI is a non-bilayer lipid, with a negative curvature intermediate to that of PE and PC. Accounting for PI, mean lipidome curvature was defended in response to pressure by two distantly related yeasts. Lipidome curvature also responded to pressure in a human cancer cell line through ether phospholipid metabolism and chain remodeling, but not in bacterial cells. These findings indicate that eukaryotic phospholipid metabolism uses diverse mechanisms to maintain curvature frustration in cell membranes.