Effect of sialidase activity on ganglioside containing membranes
Gangliosides are glycosphingolipids with bulky and charged multi-saccharide headgroups particularly abundant in the outer leaflet of plasma membrane of nervous cells, where they are involved in important functions like cell-cell recognition, cross-membrane signal transduction, cell growth and apoptosis, while being embedded in functional microdomains (rafts). In real membranes, gangliosides belong to a metabolic pathway where specific enzymes act on more complex gangliosides to give a simpler ones. Any lack of enzyme activity along this pathway give rise to severe diseases. GM3, a glycosphingolipid with one sialic acid, is the main ganglioside in the majority of mammalian cells and after the action of the enzyme Neu3 sialidase it is degradated in lactosilceramide, considered an antiapoptotic compound, thus allowing cell proliferation. A specific role of Neu3 has been proposed in cancer in which high concentrations of the enzyme would maintain high levels of lactosylceramide. We propose to perform neutron reflectometry experiments to follow the action of sialidase on single model bilayers with asymmetric composition, containing GM3 ganglioside.
Please note that you will need to login with your ILL credentials to download the data.
Download DataThe recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is in the following format:
RONDELLI Valeria Maria; BROCCA Paola; CANTU Laura; DEL FAVERO Elena and FRAGNETO Giovanna. (2016). Effect of sialidase activity on ganglioside containing membranes. Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) doi:10.5291/ILL-DATA.8-02-749
ILL has partnered with DataCite as the registration agency
for data persistent identifiers.