Matreya fluorescent labelled GM1 and ganglioside precursors

Gangliosides are acidic glycosphingolipids containing sialic acids. Forming lipid rafts in the outer leaflet of the cell plasma membrane, they participate in cellular proliferation, differentiation, adhesion, signal transduction, cell-to-cell interactions, tumorigenesis and metastasis. GM₁ is the prototypic ganglioside for all other members of this lipid class. It has roles in neuronal plasticity and repair mechanisms, and neurotrophins release.

BODIPY fluorescent tags are useful for assays measuring fluorescence resonance energy transfer, fluorescence polarisation, or fluorescence intensity.

Matreya has developed N-Propanoyl-BODIPY-monosialoganglioside GM₁ (NH₄⁺ salt) (C3:0-BODIPY-GM₁), a BODIPY-labelled GM₁ with an excitation/emission maxima of 503/512 nm and low polarity. The low polarity of this BODIPY probe makes it a good analogue of natural gangliosides. The BODIPY probe is suitable for evaluating GM₁ spatial distribution and dynamics in lipid membrane systems, including metabolism, trafficking and cell surface interactions. The BODIPY tag will introduce a fluorescent probe into any application of GM₁.