Characterization of the ceramide moieties of sphingoglycolipids from mouse brain by ESI-MS/MS

oleh: Benoit Colsch, Carlos Afonso, Iuliana Popa, Jacques Portoukalian, Françoise Fournier, Jean-Claude Tabet, Nicole Baumann

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Elsevier 2004-02-01

Deskripsi

Sphingoglycolipids (SGLs) are cell membrane constituents. As the ceramide structure influences the biological properties of the SGL, we characterized by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry the molecular species of ceramides present in SGL of mouse brain. We report here for the first time the presence in mammalian brain of sphingadienine (d18:2). Sphingenine (d18:1) is present in all SGL species, in contrast to eicosasphingenine (d20:1), which is a constituent of only gangliosides. Sphingadienine is present in galactosylceramide and sulfatides. Free ceramides contain the three types of bases.Thus, there could be two separate pools of free ceramides (d18:1, d18:2 and d20:1, d18:1) as precursors of complex SGL.