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Lecithin contains dietary precursors to choline, an essential nutrient, which was formerly classified as a B vitamin (vitamin B 4). [17] [18] Lecithin is a mixture of fats that contains phospholipids, including phosphatidylcholine, and the human body can convert phosphatidylcholine into choline.
Glycerophospholipids are derived from glycerol-3-phosphate in a de novo pathway. [3] The term glycerophospholipid signifies any derivative of glycerophosphoric acid that contains at least one O-acyl, or O-alkyl, or O-alk-1'-enyl residue attached to the glycerol moiety. [4] The phosphate group forms an ester linkage to the glycerol.
Phosphatidylcholine is the major component of lecithin. It is also a source for choline in the synthesis of acetylcholine in cholinergic neurons. Phospholipids [ 1 ] are a class of lipids whose molecule has a hydrophilic "head" containing a phosphate group and two hydrophobic "tails" derived from fatty acids , joined by an alcohol residue ...
The name lecithin was derived from Greek λέκιθος, lekithos 'egg yolk' by Theodore Nicolas Gobley, a French chemist and pharmacist of the mid-19th century, who applied it to the egg yolk phosphatidylcholine that he identified in 1847. Gobley eventually completely described his lecithin from chemical structural point of view, in 1874.
Examples of glycerophospholipids found in biological membranes are phosphatidylcholine (also known as PC, GPCho or lecithin), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE or GPEtn) and phosphatidylserine (PS or GPSer).
As a lecithin, phosphatidylethanolamine consists of a combination of glycerol esterified with two fatty acids and phosphoric acid. Whereas the phosphate group is combined with choline in phosphatidylcholine, it is combined with ethanolamine in phosphatidylethanolamine. The two fatty acids may be identical or different, and are usually found in ...