This article summarizes our early work with Viswanathan Natarajan in the 1980s at the University of Minnesota’s Hormel Institute, when he was at the beginning of his brilliant academic career. At that time most metabolic pathways for the biosynthesis and degradation of phospholipids were well established and known in considerable detail. Hence, it was exciting to discover a novel sequence of biochemical reactions, first in dog heart and later in various other vertebrate cells and tissues that became known as the transacylation-phosphodiesterase pathway of phospholipid metabolism. Because one of the metabolites, N-arachidonoylethanolamine, produced by this reaction sequence, was later found to bind to and activate cannabinoid receptors, investigations of this pathway became part of the rapidly growing field of endocannabinoid research. This is briefly summarized here as well.

本文总结了 20 世纪 80 年代我们与 Viswanathan Natarajan 在明尼苏达大学荷美尔研究所的早期合作，当时他正处于其辉煌学术生涯的开端。当时，磷脂生物合成和降解的大多数代谢途径已被充分建立并相当详细地了解。因此，令人兴奋的是发现了一系列新的生化反应，首先在狗心脏中，然后在各种其他脊椎动物细胞和组织中，这些反应被称为磷脂代谢的转酰基-磷酸二酯酶途径。由于后来发现该反应序列产生的代谢物之一N-花生四烯酰乙醇胺可以结合并激活大麻素受体，因此对该途径的研究成为快速增长的内源性大麻素研究领域的一部分。这里也对此进行了简要总结。