The Ganglioside Content of the Milk Fat‐Globule Membrane and the Mouse Mammary‐Tumour Virus Isolated from the Milk of Infected Mice

Abstract

The milk fat‐globule membrane and the mouse mammary‐tumour virus isolated from the milk of infected Swiss mice have been investigated for their content in gangliosides. When compared on the lipid phosphorus basis, viral envelope is found to contain more than twice as much lipid‐bound sialic acid as fat‐globule membrane. The ganglioside patterns of these two structures appear rather similar, except for the occurrence in fat‐globule membrane of a low ganglioside homolog, presumably GM2, not detected in viral envelope. A common and dominant trait is the presence in both structures, as the main ganglioside, of a component which has been so far characterized as a disialoganglioside, having the same neutral glycolipid moiety as GD1a, but with both sialic acid residues displaying to Clostridium perfringens and Vibrio cholerae neuraminidase, the susceptibility typical of terminal sialic acid residues.

Composition and Metabolism of Gangliosides in Rat Peripheral Nervous System During Development

“…Such splitting has been observed previously (Ledeen et al, 1968;Fong et al, 1976;Seyfried et al, 1978;Chou et al, 1979). Differences in the fatty acid chain length (Ledeen et al, 1968;Seyfried et al, 1978;Chou et al, 1979;Cochran et al, 198 1), sialic acid, NeuNAc or NeuNGly (Ledeen et al, 1968;Wiegandt and Bucking, 1970;Fong et al, 1976), hexosamines, galactosamine or glucosamine (Fong et al, 1976;Hirabayashi et al, 1979), location of sialic acid, endo or ex0 (Rauvala et al, 1978;Hirabayashi et al, 1979;Gosselin-Rey et al, 1980;Stoffyn and Stoffyn, 1980), or any combination of these factors could cause band splitting. Chemical analysis of the individual bands on TLC plates revealed that splitting of GM, and GD,, was mainly due to fatty acid chain length ( Table 2).…”