Erratum Expression of ceramide glucosyltransferases, which are essential for glycosphingolipid synthesis, is only required in a small subset of C. elegans cells

Glycosphingolipids (GSLs) are complex glycolipids derived from ceramide. They consist of a ceramide lipid moiety (a fatty acid chain linked to a sphingoid base) embedded in the cell membrane, which is attached to a wide variety of oligosaccharide structures that extend from the non-cytosolic leaflet of the lipid bilayer (Degroote et al., 2004; Lahiri and Futerman, 2007). The ceramide is made in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and the oligosaccharide is synthesized in the Golgi complex by sequential addition of sugars to ceramide in the lumenal leaflet of the membrane. The precursor of most GSLs, glucosylceramide (GlcCer), is synthesized by ceramide glucosyltransferase (CGT) (Fig. 1), which catalyzes the addition of glucose to ceramide. More complex glycosphingolipids are generated by dedicated glycosyltransferases, which add further sugar molecules to GlcCer (Fig. 1) (Varki et al., 1999).