Translocation across intestinal epithelial cells is an established pathogenic feature of the zoonotic bacterial species Campylobacter jejuni. The number of C. jejuni virulence factors known to be involved in translocation is limited. In the present study, we investigated whether sialylation of C. jejuni lipooligosaccharide (LOS) structures, generating human nerve ganglioside mimics, is importan...

Although it is now widely appreciated that antitumor immunity is critical to impede tumor growth and progression, there remain significant gaps in knowledge about the mechanisms used by tumors to escape immune control. In tumor cells, we hypothesized that one mechanism of immune escape used by tumors involves the synthesis and extracellular shedding of gangliosides, a class of biologically acti...

Aberrant glycosylation is a universal feature of cancer cells. There are quantitative and qualitative changes in expression of gangliosides observed in tumors of a neuroectodermal origin such as neuroblastoma, melanoma and astrocytoma. The presence of large amounts of GD2 ganglioside on neuroblastoma cells, as compared to normal cells, opens the possibilities to use the tumor-associated carbohy...

This presentation highlights aspects of the immunobiology of the Guillain-Barré syndromes (GBS), the world's leading cause of acute autoimmune neuromuscular paralysis. Understanding the key pathophysiological pathways of GBS and developing rational, specific immunotherapies are essential steps towards improving the clinical outcome of this devastating disorder. Much of the research into GBS ove...

Membrane ganglioside changes in murine peritoneal macrophages and the human promyelocytic leukemia cell line HL-60 have been assessed by two-dimensional thin-layer chromatography. C3H/HeJ mice respond to protein-containing endotoxin but are hyporesponsive to protein-free endotoxin preparations. Compared to unstimulated resident cells, protein-containing endotoxin produced an alteration in the C...

Gangliosides, which are sialylated glycosphingolipids, are the major class of glycoconjugates on neurons and carry the majority of the sialic acid within the central nervous system (CNS). To determine the role of ganglioside synthesis within the CNS, mice carrying null mutations in two critical ganglioside-specific glycosyltransferase genes, Siat9 (encoding GM3 synthase) and Galgt1 (encoding GM...

Cholera toxin (CT) binds ganglioside GM1 and has been used as an adjuvant in transcutaneous immunization. To determine if the adjuvant property of CT was merely due to binding to ganglioside GM1, mice were immunized by the transcutaneous route using hen egg lysozyme (HEL) as the antigen, and either CT or synthetic peptides that bind to ganglioside GM1 as the adjuvant, and the immune responses w...

Balb/c 3T3 cells contain a large number [(0.8-1.6) x 1061 of high-affinity (half-maximal binding at 0.2 nM) binding sites for cholera toxin that are resistant to proteolysis, but are quantitatively extracted with chloroform/methanol. The following evidence rigorously establishes that the receptor is a ganglioside similar to, or identical with, ganglioside GM1. (1) Labelling of ganglioside GM1 b...

Objectives: Anti-ganglioside antibodies are present in about half of the patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Recently it has been shown that a considerable proportion of these patients has serum antibodies against antigenic epitopes formed by a complex of two different gangliosides. However, direct experimental evidence for neuropathogenicity of this special category of antibodies is c...

UNLABELLED Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) is one of the most difficult manifestations of lupus to diagnose. Measurement of serum brain antibodies has contributed to early diagnosis and management of NPSLE before development of a debilitating disease. We aimed to assess the value of serum anti-ganglioside M1 antibodies in prediction of NPSLE, in comparison to other antibod...