Animal Gangliosides

A specific interaction was observed between the ganglioside (1), which had been incorporated in glycerol monoleate planar bilayer membranes, and folli-tropin. A five-fold increase in conductance was measured in the presence of (1) while neither di- or tri-sialogangliosides showed any effect. The increase was suppressed by the presence of an equimolar mixture of D-galactose, 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-galactose, and iV-acetylneuraminic acid. The results favour the hypothesis that gangliosides may contribute to the formation of functional glycoprotein receptors. 

The interaction of cholera toxin with vesicles is strong enough to permit perturbation in the lipid membrane, but it does not affect the dissociation of the active a-chain from the vesicle-bound toxin. 

The neutral glycosphingolipid contents of human heart (12-16 h after death) were 90-160 nmol g net weight and trihexosylceramide and globoside were the most abundant components. The total ganglioside content was much lower (cc. 50 nmol g net weight). G and were the most abundant components, but mono-, di- and tri-sialogangliosides were also found. There were differences between heart tissue and other human tissue. 

Fibroblasts, cultured from the skin of patients with the genetic diseases mucolipidosis I and mucolipidosis II, were found to be deficient in a neuraminidase specific for both (2 3) and (2 6) linkages of a-neuraminosyl groups in 

Higashi, M. Naiki, S. Matuo, and K. Okouchi, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 1977, 79, 388. 

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The illustration shows a model of a small section of a membrane. The phospholipids are the most important group of membrane lipids. They include phosphatidylcholine (lecithin), phosphatidylethanolamine, phos-phatidylserine, phosphatidylinositol, and sphingomyelin (for their structures, see p. 50). in addition, membranes in animal cells also contain cholesterol (with the exception of inner mitochondrial membranes). Clycoli-pids (a ganglioside is shown here) are mainly found on the outside of the plasma membrane. Together with the glycoproteins, they form the exterior coating of the cell (the gly-cocalyx). 

Similarly to the gangliosides of higher animals, the sialoglycolipids in sea urchins seem to take part in growth control. For the S. intermedius embryos, the exposure of sialoglycolipids at the cell surface has been shown to depend on the cell density in the incubation medium in sparse embryos, they are much more exposed than in the dense ones.290 This phenomenon seems to be similar to the fact, known for mammalian cells, that the synthesis of glycolipids depends on cell contact.12-13... 

Comparison Of Thymus Gangliosides Of Various Animals. The unique characteristic of thymus ganglioside is its distinct species specificity. We examined thymus of human, calf, rat and mouse in addition to rabbit. As... 

Figure 5. Thin-layer chromatogram of thymus gangliosides of various animals. Abbreviations as in Figure 1.

Z. C. Tsui, Q. R. Chen, M. J. Thomas, M. Samuel, and Z. Cui, A method for profiling gangliosides in animal tissues using electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry, Anal. Biochem., 341 (2005) 251-258. 

A series of studies show that sphingolipids derived from milk protect against development of colon tumors in mice. In the initial study (Dillehay et al., 1994), mice fed diets supplemented with 0.025, 0.050 or 0.1% sphingomyelin had less than half the incidence of 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH)-induced colon tumors than mice fed non-supplemented diets. In addition, a diet supplemented with 0.025% of the ganglioside GMj produced significantly fewer DMH-induced aberrant crypt foci (ACF) than control animals. ACF are microscopically determined pre-neoplastic lesions that can develop into colon tumors. 

Sialyltransferases transfer sialic acid moieties as the terminal residues in oligosaccharide side chains of animal cell coat proteins and gangliosides. In this assay, CMP-7V-acetylneuraminic acid was reacted with asialoglycoprotein to form cytidfne 5 -monophosphate (CMP) and the O-acetylneuraminic acid derivative of the protein. 

The GM2 ganglioside (14) is an example of a carbohydrate antigen, specific for melanoma, sarcoma and kidney carcinoma. It could suit the purpose of an immuno therapy with monoclonal antibodies. In previous examinations the used GM2 was extracted from human and animal tissues. In this, one ran the risk of biological contamination of the GM2, which could influence the results of an examination. For this reason R. R. Schmidt et al. developed a total synthesis of the GM2 ganglioside to sustain sufficient substance for further immunological examinations without faking artifacts. ... 

S, Kasama T, Ohnishi A, Hayashi S, Takahashi H, Kamijo M, Hirata K (2001) Animal model of axonal Guillain-Barre syndrome induced by sensidzadon with GMl ganglioside. Ann Neurol 49 712-720. 

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