thesis exist in plant tissues. The early stages of fat synthesis 

 may well be similar in photosynthesizing chloroplasts to those 

 known for other plant tissue and animals. The later stages 

 and the fat products formed during photosynthesis in chloro- 

 plasts are very likely different, since the chloroplast in all 

 likelihood requires specialized fats for its operation. Benson 

 and co-workers have identified a number of interesting com- 

 pounds of glycerol phosphate and fatty acids as products of 

 fat formation in green tissues. According to these workers, 

 phosphatidyl glycerol is a major component of plant phos- 

 pholipids. Moreover, they state that active transphosphatidyl 

 action is observed during photosynthesis (104-106). 



Glycerol phosphate 



Alpha-D-glyceryl-1 -phosphate is presumably formed in 

 chloroplasts during photosynthesis by direct reduction with 

 TPNH of dihydroxyacetone phosphate. This compound 

 could then be further converted to the polyglycerol phos- 

 phates reported by Benson. The various glycerol phosphates 

 would then presumably react with fatty acetyl CoA to pro- 

 duce fats. Some of these postulated biosynthetic routes are 

 shown in Figure 9. 



59 



