Ganglioside content and composition in human gliomas

Many alterations of ganglioside content and distribution have been described in human and experimental tumours. Our previous data showed the presence of lipid alterations in meningiomas, in particular an increased monosialylganglioside content. Therefore we analyzed the distribution and content of gangliosides in various gliomas. The data show that ganglioside content is inversely proportional to tissue malignancy and that the ganglioside pattern can be described as lacking of polysialylgangliosides with increased GD3 content. The amount of GD3 (as percent of total gangliosides sialic acid) increases from 15% in astrocytomas grade I to 60% in grade IV. The GD3 increase seems to be almost specific of glioma. Because anti-GD3 antibodies could be used to localize immunohistochemically the ganglioside and to help the tumour grading, we used a purified preparation of GD3 to produce monoclonal antibodies in balb/c mice. But because some clones did produce anti-GD3 antibodies the low yield requires further experiments to obtain an antibody useful for this purpose.