AGE-RELATED-CHANGES OF THE GANGLIOSIDE LONG-CHAIN BASE COMPOSITION INRAT CEREBELLUM

The ganglioside mixture from the cerebellum of young, 6 month old and two years old rats, was fractionated by reversed phase high performanc e liquid chromatography, each ganglioside homogeneous in the oligosacc haride chain as well as in the long-chain base being subsequently quan tified. Two long-chain bases, LCB, were components of the five major g angliosides GM1, GD1a, GD1b, GT1b and GQ1b, these being the C18:1 LCB and C20:1 LCB. The content of C20:1 ganglioside molecular species was lower than that of the C18: 1 one. In very young animals, day 8, the C 20: 1 ganglioside species represented about 8% of the total gangliosid e content, then they progressively increased and reached, at 2 years, about 42% of the total. C18:1 GD1a and C18: 1 GT1b, were the major spe cies in young animals and reached their highest content at day 29, bei ng 1.45 and 1.28 nmol/mg protein, respectively. The content of these t wo species decreased in adult and old animals and at two years it was 0.71 and 0.82 nmol/mg protein, respectively.