Molecular mimicry between microbial and self-components is postulated as the mechanism that accounts for the antigen and tissue specificity of immune responses in postinfectious autoimmune diseases. Little direct evidence exists, and research in this area has focused principally on T cell-mediated, antipeptide responses, rather than on humoral responses to carbohydrate structures. Guillain-Barr...

Lipid rafts isolated by detergent extraction and sucrose gradient fractionation from mast cells are enriched for the glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked protein Thy-1, the ganglioside GM1, palmitoylated LAT, and cross-linked IgE receptors, FcepsilonRI. This study addresses the relationship of fractionation data to the organization of raft markers in native membranes. Immunogold labeling and ele...

Lateral segregation of cell membranes is accepted as a primary mechanism for cells to regulate a diversity of cellular functions. In this context, lipid rafts have been conceptualized as organizing principle of biological membranes where underlying cholesterol-mediated selective connectivity must exist even at the resting state. However, such a level of nanoscale compositional connectivity has ...

SUMMARY Late infantile GM1 gangliosidosis is a rare lysosomal disorder characterized by mental deterioration and progressive spastic, cerebellar, and extrapyramidal signs, without facial dysmorphisms and organomegaly. Neuroimaging findings have been reported in only a few cases. Here we report on predominant globus pallidus MR signal-intensity abnormalities in 2 patients with the late infantile...

Localization of ganglioside GM1 in cholinergic neurons from the septal area of a primary culture newborn rat brain was studied with a double avidin-biotin complex system. Cholinergic neurons were identified by double immunolabeling techniques that use choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and neurofilament (NF) protein-antibodies. ChAT-positive neurons also were stained for ganglioside GM1 by using ...

GM1 ganglioside is known to be involved in the amyloid-associated diseases and it is a crucial factor for the assembly of amyloid proteins on lipid-rafts, which are lipid structures located on the synaptic plasma membranes. Due to its slow aggregation rate, we employed salmon calcitonin (sCT) as a suitable probe representative of amyloid proteins, to study the interaction between this class of ...

The ability to induce T-cell apoptosis is one mechanism by which tumors evade the immune system, although the molecules involved remain controversial. We found that renal cell carcinoma (RCC)–induced T-cell apoptosis was inhibited by >50% when cocultures were performed with gangliosidedepleted tumor cells, caspase-8–negative lymphocytes, or anti–tumor necrosis factor-A (TNFA) antibodies, sugges...

Huntington disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by the expansion beyond a critical threshold of a polyglutamine (polyQ) tract near the N-terminus of the huntingtin (htt) protein. Expanded polyQ promotes the formation of a variety of oligomeric and fibrillar aggregates of htt that accumulate into the hallmark proteinaceous inclusion bodies associated with HD. htt is also...

PURPOSE Immunotherapy directed toward cell surface antigens may provide a novel approach to the eradication of chemoresistant micrometastatic disease in patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). Studies in SCLC cell lines and human tissues suggest that the ganglioside fucosyl GM1 is an abundant yet specific target. A prior clinical study demonstrated the potent immunogenicity of fucosyl GM-1...

Although small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is highly responsive to chemotherapy, relapses are common, and most patients die within 2 years of diagnosis. After initial therapy, standard treatment is observation alone. We have been investigating immunization against selected gangliosides as adjuvant therapy directed against residual and presumably resistant disease persisting after chemotherapy and i...