Question

Q1) Bacteria growing at lower temperatures will have fatty acids with lower melting points in their membrane phospholipids. Why?​

Answer 1

Answer:

If you look at the chemical structure of unsaturated fat vs saturated fat, the first thing you’ll notice is that unsaturated fat contain double bonds (unsaturated) within their chemicals, the carbon chain is kinked, while in the saturated version, its a long aliphatic chain with no kink.

The straight, linear structure of the saturated version allows the molecules to be packed (as more surface area for Van de Waals interactions) easier, while the kinks in unsaturated version break the packing. This is the reason why oil is liquid while animal fat is solid at room temperature. When the temperature gets lower, the molecules have the more tendency to be packed closer. Bacteria don’t want their membrane to be too rigid at cold temperature, thus they adapt by synthesizing more unsaturated lipids, insert that into the membrane and allow the PM to maintain its fluidity. The same thing happens in plants in cold regions.

This is my Answer, please mark as the brainliest answer!