Abstract
In this study, 13 cases of newborn term-gestational infants and six cases of premature infants who died of hypoxia were selected for the determination of ganglioside levels in several regions of brains obtained at autopsy. Cases were divided into three groups according to the hypoxic interval and gestational age: Group A, six cases of newborn infants. The average time of hypoxia was 6.4 h. Group B, seven cases of newborn infants. The average time of hypoxia was about 71 h. Group C, six cases of premature infants. The average hypoxia time was 34.7 h. Frontal cortex, forebrain, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus and cerebellum of each brain were examined. The method of Ladisch and Gillard (1985) was used to purify and quantify gangliosides.
The results showed that total gangliosides decreased significantly in three regions of cerebral hemispheres of group B and in four brain regions of group C, as compared with group A (p<0.01). The amount of gangliosides in frontal cortex in group B was lower than in group C (p<0.01). The four major gangliosides (GM1, GD1a, GD1b, and GT1b) were all reduced in cerebral hemispheres of group B and C. In hypoxic brains, the percentage of gangliosides also showed some alterations. There was less GD1a in the cerebral hemispheres of group B and the frontal cortex of group C. The amount of GD1b was also less in the frontal cortex and forebrain of group B than in group A or C. The results suggest that severe hypoxia might cause decreases in brain gangliosides that correlate to the severity of brain damage.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Cheresh D. A. (1985) Structural and functional properties of gangliosides antigens on human tumors of neuroectodermal origin.Surv. Synth. Pathol. Res. 4, 97–109.
Cheresh D. A., Pierschbacher M. D., Herzig M. A., and Mujoo K. (1986) Disialogangliosides GD2 and GD3 are involved in the attachment of human melanoma and neuroblastoma cells to extracellular matrix protein.J. Cell Biol. 102, 688–696.
Dimpfel W., Moller W., and Mengs U. (1981) Ganglioside-induced neurite formation in cultured neuroblastoma cells, inGangliosides in Neurological and Neuromuscular Function, Development and Repair (Rapport M. M., and Gorio A., eds.), pp. 119–134, Raven, New York.
Fishman P. H. (1988) Gangliosides as cell surface receptors and transducers of biological signals, inNew Trends in Ganglioside Research (Ledeen R. W., Hogan E. L., Tettamanti G., Yates A. J. and Yu R. K., eds.) pp. 183–201, Liviana, Padova, Italy.
Huang K. W. (ed.) (1965) Anoxia of nervous system,Neuropathology pp. 41–57, People’s Medical, Beijing.
Kamp P. E., den Hartog-Jager W. A., Mathuis J., de Groot P. A., de Jong J. M., and Bolhuis P. A. (1986) Brain gangliosides in the presenile dementia of Pick.J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 49 (8), 881–885.
Ladisch S. and Gillard B. (1985) A solvent partition method for microscale ganglioside purification.Anal. Biochem. 146, 220–231.
Ledeen R. W., Cochran F. B., Yu R. K., Samuels F. G., and Haley J. E. (1980) Gangliosides of the CNS myelin membrane.Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 125, 167–176.
Ledeen R. W. (1983) Gangliosides, inHandbook of Neurochemistry (Lajtha A., ed.) pp. 41–90, Plenum, New York.
Markwell M. A. K., Moss J., Hom B. E., Fishman P. H., and Svennerholm L. (1986) Expression of gangliosides as receptors at the cell surface controls infection of NCTC 2071 cells by Sendai virus.Virology 155, 356–364.
Nagai Y., Momoi T., Sai-to M., Mitsuzawa F., and Ohtani S. (1976) Ganglioside syndrome, a new autoimmune neurologic disorder, experimentally induced with brain ganglioside.Neurosci. Lett. 2, 107–111.
Nagai Y. and Zwamori M. (1984) Ganglioside distribution at different levels of organization and its biological implications.Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 174, 135–146.
Pu D. F. (1981) Anoxic and ischemic cerebral impairment of newborns, inDiseases of the Nervous System in Children (Zuo Q. H. et al., eds.) pp. 480–487, People’s Medical, Beijing.
Rapport M. M., Donnenfeld H., Brunner W., Hungund B., and Bartfeld H. (1985) Ganglioside patterns in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis brain regions.Ann. Neurol. 18, 60–67.
Seglar-Stahl K., Webster J. C., Brunngraber E. G. (1983) Changes in the concentration and composition of human brain gangliosides with aging.Gerontology 29, 161–168.
Seyfried T. N., Glaser G. H., and Yu R. K. (1978) Cerebral, cerebellar and brain stem gangliosides in mice susceptible to audiogenic seizures.J. Neurochem. 31(1), 21–27.
Seyfried T. N., Bernard D. J., and Yu R. K. (1987) Effect of Purkinje cell lose on cerebellar gangliosides in nervous mutant mice.J. Neurosci. Res. 17(13), 251–255.
Suzuki K. (1966) Ganglioside patterns of normal and pathological brains, inInborn Disorders of Sphingolipid Metabolism (Aronson, S. M. and Volk, B. W., eds.) p. 215, Pergamon, Oxford.
Suzuki K. (1984) Gangliosides and disease.Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 174, 407–418.
Svennerholm L. (1963) Chromatographic separation of human brain gangliosides.J. Neurochem. 10, 613–623.
Svennerholm L. (1957) Quantitative estimation of sialic acids, II. A colorimetric resorcinol hydrochloric acid method.Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 24, 604–611.
Szekely A. M., Barbaccia M. L., and Costa E. (1987) Activation of specific glutamate receptor subtypes increases c-fos proto oncogene expression in primary cultures of neonatal rat cerebellar granule cells.Neuropharmacology,26, 1779–1782.
Tettamanti G., Preti A., Cestaro B., Venerando B., Lombardo A., Ghidoni R., and Sonnino S. (1980) Gangliosides, neuraminidase and sialytransferase at the nerve endings.Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 125, 263–281.
Wieraszko A., and Seifert W. (1986) Involvement of gangliosides in the synaptic transmission in the hippocampus and striatum of the rat brain, inGangliosides and Neuronal Plasticity (Tettamanti G., Ledeen R. W., Sandhoff K., Nagai Y., and Toffano G., eds.), pp. 137–151, Liviana, Padova, Italy.
Yang S. L. (1987) Neurochemical and metabolic changes during cerebral ischemia,Proc. 3rd Natl. Meeting Neuropharmacology, Xian, China.
Yasuda Y., Tiemeyer M., Blackburn C. C., and Schnaar R. L. (1988) Neuronal recognition of gangliosides: Evidence for a brain ganglioside receptor, inNew Trends in Ganglioside Research (Ledeen R. W., Hogan E. L., Tettamanti G., Yates A. J., and Yu R. K., eds.), pp. 229–243, Liviana, Padova, Italy.
Yu R. K., Ledeen R. W., and Eng L. F. (1974) Ganglioside abnormalities in multiple sclerosis.J. Neurochem. 23, 169–174.
Yusuf H. K. M., and Dickerson J. W. T. (1978) Disialoganglioside GD1a of rat brain subcellular particles during development.Biochem. J. 174, 655–657.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Qi, Y., Xue, Qm. Ganglioside levels in hypoxic brains from neonatal and premature infants. Molecular and Chemical Neuropathology 14, 87–97 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03159929
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03159929