Glycosphingolipids

Glycosphingolipid structures in biochemistry, physiology and medicine: modern aspects of study

Glycosphingolipids (GSLs) are a broad class of biological molecules that play important roles in various processes associated with the functioning of human cells and tissues. Unlike glycolipids, this is a more general name that combines various subtypes of structurally related glycoderived polysaccharide components of the outer membrane of various eukaryotic cells. This name is due to the fact that glycoderivative structures have two characteristic features: firstly, they include carbohydrates as monomeric units (which are most often represented by N-acetylglycosamine (NAG); (a less common variant: glucuronic acid), secondly, their carbohydrate component is directly coupled to the lipid part (esterification, methylation and other means).GSLs usually include several sugars covalently linked to each other as a result of glycosidic interaction.Specific physiological properties such as adhesion, clustering, cytoskeleton, interferonogenesis and the recruitment of other signal molecules in the presence of certain cells or times, make glycostructures primary molecular signals and markers for biological processes in a wide range of cell types, including some tumor cells. This property gives glycospingolipids potential as tumor markers in diagnosis and patient monitoring

Currently, more than 4 types of glycosphygolipids are known: uridine diphosphomonoacetylglycerol (UDP-Gal), galactosamine glycosyl (GM3), fucosamine diphosphatyl glucoside (LGb4) and fucosamine monophosphate glucoside (Lp4). All of these cell surface glycones can associate either neutrile or water soluble