Department of Biological Chemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
IUBMB Life. 2010 May;62(5):347-56. doi: 10.1002/iub.319.
In mammals, ceramide, a key intermediate in sphingolipid metabolism and an important signaling molecule, is synthesized by a family of six ceramide synthases (CerS), each of which synthesizes ceramides with distinct acyl chain lengths. There are a number of common biochemical features between the CerS, such as their catalytic mechanism, and their structure and intracellular localization. Different CerS also display remarkable differences in their biological properties, with each of them playing distinct roles in processes as diverse as cancer and tumor suppression, in the response to chemotherapeutic drugs, in apoptosis, and in neurodegenerative diseases.
在哺乳动物中,神经酰胺是鞘脂代谢中的关键中间产物,也是一种重要的信号分子,由六种神经酰胺合成酶(CerS)家族合成,每种酶都能合成具有不同酰基链长度的神经酰胺。CerS 之间存在许多共同的生化特征,如催化机制以及它们的结构和细胞内定位。不同的 CerS 在其生物学特性上也表现出显著的差异,它们在癌症和肿瘤抑制、对化疗药物的反应、细胞凋亡以及神经退行性疾病等多种过程中发挥着不同的作用。