Receptors glycolipid

George T., Boyd B., Price M., Lingwood C., Maloney M., MHC class II proteins contain a potential binding site for the verotoxin receptor glycolipid CD77, Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand) 47 (2001) 1179-1185. 

Arab, S., Russel, E., Chapman, W., Rosen, B. and Lingwood, C., Expression of the Verotoxin receptor glycolipid, globotriaosylceramide, in Ovarian Hyperplasias, Oncol Res, 1997, 9 553-563. 

Lipids are transported between membranes. As indicated above, lipids are often biosynthesized in one intracellular membrane and must be transported to other intracellular compartments for membrane biogenesis. Because lipids are insoluble in water, special mechanisms must exist for the inter- and intracellular transport of membrane lipids. Vesicular trafficking, cytoplasmic transfer-exchange proteins and direct transfer across membrane contacts can transport lipids from one membrane to another. The best understood of such mechanisms is vesicular transport, wherein the lipid molecules are sorted into membrane vesicles that bud out from the donor membrane and travel to and then fuse with the recipient membrane. The well characterized transport of plasma cholesterol into cells via receptor-mediated endocytosis is a useful model of this type of lipid transport. [9, 20]. A brain specific transporter for cholesterol has been identified (see Chapter 5). It is believed that transport of cholesterol from the endoplasmic reticulum to other membranes and of glycolipids from the Golgi bodies to the plasma membrane is mediated by similar mechanisms. The transport of phosphoglycerides is less clearly understood. Recent evidence suggests that net phospholipid movement between subcellular membranes may occur via specialized zones of apposition, as characterized for transfer of PtdSer between mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum [21]. 

Glycolipid activation of invariant T cell receptor + NK T cells is sufficient to induce airway hyperreactivity independent of conventional CD4+ T cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2006 103 2782-2787. 

Ma ZF, Li JR, Jiang L, Cao J, Boullanger P. Influence of the spacer length of glycolipid receptors in polydiacetylene vesicles on the colorimetric detection of Escherichia coli. Langmuir 2000 16 7801-7804. 

Since drugs interact with optically active, asymmetric biological macromolecules such as proteins, polynucleotides, or glycolipids acting as receptors, many of them exhibit stereochemical specificity. This means that there is a difference in action between stereoisomers of the same compound, with one isomer showing pharmacological activity while the other is more or less inactive. In 1860, Louis Pasteur was the first to demonstrate that molds and yeasts can differentiate between (+)- and (-)-tartarates, utilizing only one of the two isomers. 

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