Glycolipids probes

Lectins, or proteins with specific binding sites for carbohydrates, can be used as targeting molecules to localize particular glycoconjugates such as glycoproteins or glycolipids on cell surfaces (Fig. 373). Labeled with gold particles, lectins are important probes for detection of cell surface components and intracellular receptors and in immunological or biochemical assay procedures (Bog-Hansen et al., 1978 Kimura et al., 1979 Nicolson, 1978 Roth, 1983 Benhamou et al., 1988 Nakajima et al., 1988). 

Figure 1 Examples of lipids found commonly and used in cells, (a) DPPC (b) 1-palmitoyl-2-(1-pyrenedecanoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (PyrPC) (c) Palmitoyl-SM (d) Cholesterol (e) Dipalmitoylphosphatidylethanolamine (f) 1,2-di-0-palmitoyl-3-0-fi-D-galactosyl-sn-glycerol (DPGALA). Of these lipids, PyrPC is a pyrene-linked lipid probe and DPGALA is a glycolipid. The first four lipids are represented by a united-atom description, and the last two lipids are represented by a full-atom description.

KEY EXPERIMENT PROBES TO STUDY CHOLESTEROL AND/OR GLYCOLIPID-DEPENDENT MECHANISMS... 

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