Structure and Specificity of Gangliosides

Abstract

The name gangliosides was coined by E. Klenk (1) for the class of sialoglycosphingolipids which he had discov ered to be highly concentrated in the ganglion cells of the central nervous system. It was in fact this localiz ation and in addition the pathological accumulation of the gangliosides in Tay-Sachs and similar storage diseases, which much stimulated the early interest of research in this field (for review see (2)). The distinguishing molecular constituent of the gangliosides, of course, is the sialic acid. It is known now that the var iously substituted neuraminic acids indeed function in various highly important biological phenomena (3) and one may expect gangliosides frequently to be involved. It is, however, still not sufficiently clear in how far the gangliosides do in fact serve biological functions different from their relatives, the neutral glycosphin-golipids (for review see (4)). The gangliosides and neu tral glycosphingolipids contribute to the specific oligosaccharide structures located at the outer cell surface, which have long been implicated in processes of membrane mediated information (Lit.cit.in 5). Special significance was attributed to the surface carbohydrates in events of cell to cell contact (6) and the altered growth behaviour of transformed cells (7).