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Making sense of glycosphingolipids in epithelial polarity

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A potential role for glycosphingolipids and lipid rafts in apical sorting was initially met with enthusiasm, but genetic analysis has since provided little support for it. A report now establishes that glycosphingolipids mediate apical sorting, and specifically help maintain apicobasal polarity in Caenorhabditis elegans.

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Figure 1: Glycosphingolipids maintain C. elegans epithelial polarity.
Figure 2: Simplified representation of glycosphingolipid biosynthetic pathways.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IGBMC, Development and Stem Cells Program, CNRS (UMR7104), INSERM (U964), Université de Strasbourg, 1 rue Laurent Fries, BP10142, Illkirch, 67400, France

    Vincent Hyenne & Michel Labouesse

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  1. Vincent Hyenne
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  2. Michel Labouesse
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Correspondence to Vincent Hyenne or Michel Labouesse.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Hyenne, V., Labouesse, M. Making sense of glycosphingolipids in epithelial polarity. Nat Cell Biol 13, 1185–1187 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb2350

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