Application Notes:
This cerebroside product is a glycosphingolipid containing a glucose attached to a ceramide (glucocerebroside) acylated with
a deuterated fatty acid, making it an ideal mass spectroscopy standard. Glucocerebroside is a major constituent of skin lipids
where it has an important role in lamellar body formation and in maintaining the water permeability barrier.
Glucocerebroside is very important due to its function as the biosynthetic precursor of lactosylceramide and from there of
most of the neutral oligoglycolipids and gangliosides.1 Glucocerebroside is the only glycosphingolipid that is found in plants,
fungi, and animals and is one of the most abundant glycosphingolipids in plants. Due to the relatively high melting point of
cerebrosides (much greater than physiological body temperature) they have a para-crystalline structure. Glucocerebrosides
tend to be concentrated in the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane in lipid rafts. It has been reported that glucocerebrosides
are essential for the activity of tyrosinase (a key enzyme in melanin biosynthesis), to elicit defense responses in plants, and to
help the plasma membrane in plants to withstand stresses brought about by cold and drought. In Gaucher’s disease
glucocerebrosides accumulate in the spleen, liver, lungs, bone marrow, and brain due to a deficiency of the enzyme
glucocerebrosidase.2 This accumulation of glucocerebroside has been associated with chemotherapy resistance.
Glucocerebroside has been shown to be able to modulate membrane traffic along the endocytic pathway.3
References:
1. D. Sillence et al. “Assay for the transbilayer distribution of glycolipids: selective oxidation of glucosylceramide to glucuronylceramide by TEMPO
nitroxyl radicals” Journal of Lipid Research, Vol. 41(8) pp. 1252-1260, 2000
2. C. Walden et al. “Accumulation of Glucosylceramide in Murine Testis, Caused by Inhibition of -Glucosidase 2: IMPLICATIONS FOR
SPERMATOGENESIS” The Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 282 pp. 32655-32664, 2007
3. D. Sillence et al. “Glucosylceramide modulates membrane traffic along the endocytic pathway” Journal of Lipid Research, Vol. 43(11) pp. 1837-1845,
2002