Stage specific embryonic antigen 3

Stage-specific embryonic antigen 3 (SSEA-3) is a glycosphingolipid, specifically, an oligosaccharide composed of five carbohydrate units connected to a sphingolipid. Sphingolipids were originally discovered in 1884 by John Louis William Thudichum who named them after the Sphinx of Greek mythology in reference to the unresolved riddle of their function.[1] It is now known that sphingolipids function as key players in cell signaling [2] and the SSEA-3 molecule as a whole plays a key role in identifying many types of mammalian cells with pluripotent and stem cell-like characteristics.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Thudichum, John Louis William (1884). A Treatise on the Chemical Constitution of Brain. London: Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox. OCLC 253038666.
  2. ↑ Futerman, AH; Hannun, YA (2004). "The complex life of simple sphingolipids". EMBO Reports. 5 (8): 777–782. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400208. PMC 1299119Freely accessible. PMID 15289826.
  3. ↑ Byrne, James (2011-07-01). "A mini-review on stage-specific embryonic antigen 3 (SSEA-3)". eJournal of Cellular Biotechnology. 1:eP3.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/5/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.