Glycosphingolipids in sheep liver, kidney, and various blood cells.

Sheep liver, kidney, bone marrow, and erythrocytes gave their own specific patterns of neutral and acidic glycosphingolipids. A major neutral glycosphingolipid was found to be lactosylceramide in the liver and bone marrow, glucosylceramide in the kidney, and Forssman glycolipid in the erythrocytes, respectively. The Forssman glycolipid was not found in the liver, kidney, bone marrow, leukocytes, platelets and plasma even by a sensitive thin layer chromatography immunostaining, but two unknown glycosphingolipids, reactive to Forssman antibody, were slightly recognized in addition to Forssman glycolipid in the erythrocytes. Sulfolipids were found certainly in the kidney, but not found in the other tissues and cells. GM3 as a major ganglioside and other minor gangliosides whose sialic acids consisted of both N-acetylneuraminic acid and N-glycolylneuraminic acid were found in liver, kidney, leukocytes, platelets, and plasma, whereas the sheep erythrocytes were found to contain three major gangliosides of GM3, disialosyltetraglycosylceramide (probably disialosyllactoneotetraosylceramide) and disialosylhexaglycosylceramide (probably disialosyllacto-norhexaosylceramide) which had N-glycolylneuraminic acid and N-acetyl-neuraminic acid.