liveonearth | Biochemistry 306: Lipids

What is the general structure of a fatty acid?
A carboxylic acid often with a long unbranched aliphatic tail (chain), which is either saturated or unsaturated.

What is the structure of glycerol?

What is a triacylglycerol?
A glycerol backbone with fatty acyl groups attached to all three carbons; a triglyceride.

What do you call a glycerol backbone with fatty acyl groups esterified at positions 1 and 2, and a phosphate derivative esterified at position 3?
A phospholipid, ie. the molecules that naturally arrange as a bilayer and comprise the majority of our cellular membranes. Each phospholipid molecule is said to be amphipathic, meaning it has both polar and nonpolar regions.

NAMING LIPIDS
My elephant plays basketball poorly however he often needs directions----this is an acronym for the fatty acids, increasing is size from M---methanoic acid with one carbon, E---ethanoic acid (2 carbons), P---propanoic acid (3 carbons) on up.

My methanoic
elephant ethanoic
plays propanoic
basketball butyric
poorly
however
he
often
needs
direction