Glycerol 1-phosphate is a starting material for de novo synthesis of ether lipids, such as those derived from archaeol and caldarchaeol. It is first geranylgeranylated on its sn-3 position by a cytosolic enzyme, phosphoglycerol geranylgeranyltransferase. A second geranylgeranyl group is then added on the sn-2 position making unsaturated archaetidic acid.[4]
Organisms other than archaea, i.e. bacteria and eukaryotes, use the enantiomer, glycerol 3-phosphate for producing their cell membranes. The fact that archaea use the flipped chirality compared to these two groups is termed a lipid divide.[2] As of 2021, biologists still do not know how the lipid divide happened.[5]
^Nishihara & Koga (1995). "sn-Glycerol-1-phosphate dehydrogenase in Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum: key enzyme in biosynthesis of the enantiomeric glycerophosphate backbone of ether phospholipids of archaebacteria". J. Biochem. 117 (5): 933–935. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jbchem.a124822. PMID8586635.
+ NAD(P)H + H+ → 
+ NAD(P)+
