Sialic Acids, Metabolism and Function : edited by R. Schauer, Springer-Verlag, Wien and New York, 1982, xix + 320 pages + Subject Index, $65.60, DM 164.00
✍ Scribed by Stuart W. Tanenbaum
- Book ID
- 102641317
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1984
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 208 KB
- Volume
- 129
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0008-6215
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✦ Synopsis
Since their initial biochemical characterization in the mid-1950's by Blix and Klenk, the sialic (neuraminic) acids have been found by cell biologists to be effectors in such phenomena as receptor recognition, adhesiveness, catabolic protection, aggregation, masking (or unmasking) of antigenicity, metastatic potential, nerve-signal transmission, viral replication, and certain genetic disorders. At the biochemical level, enzymes that are critical to the formation, degradation, transfer, and pathologic contributions of sialyl residues have also been extensively investigated. This family of amino sugars not only appears at the molecular level as a component of glycoproteins and oligosaccharides, and of gangliosides in several differing positional and structural placements, but also reflects a number of intrinsic, substitutional variations on a fundamental, chemical theme. The complexity of dealing with these substances has been further compounded by an as-yet-unresolved, twenty-five-year-old nomenclatural dispute as to whether the parental, ninecarbon amino sugar ought to be designated sialic or neuraminic acid. It is, therefore, not surprising that the foregoing considerations have been the subject of several books and review articles, beginning in 1960.