Profiling of sweet-fatty molecules on cell surfaces.

Fig. Human mesenchymal stem cells were differentiated into fat cells and the fat vacuoles were stained: The stem cells and their differentiation products contain specific sweet-fatty surface structures (glycolipids) that can be used to distinguish them. Copyright: Institute for Cell and Tissue Culture Technologies, BOKU Vienna - New method enables measurement of glycolipids; now, for example, the relevance in cancer will be investigated So-called glycolipids, or "sweet-fatty" molecules, are a relatively unknown group among the body's diverse lipids. A method developed by an Austrian team led by chemist Evelyn Rampler of the University of Vienna has now provided deeper insights into the functioning of certain glycolipids, which are located, among other things, on the surfaces of stem cells. The researchers from the University of Vienna, BOKU Vienna and the University of Graz presented the method, which can be applied to a wide range of glycolipid groups, in the open access "Journal of the American Chemical Society Au". Pioneering method development in glyco-research, i.e. for determining the function of sugar structures on cell surfaces, recently received great recognition with the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Carolyn Bertozzi. Research into the class of sweet-fatty molecules known as glycolipids, on the other hand, is a relatively new, emerging field of research.