Ganglioside lipidomics of CNS myelination using direct infusion shotgun mass spectrometry.

Gangliosides are present and concentrated in axons and implicated in axon-myelin interactions, but how ganglioside composition changes during myelin formation is not known. Here, we present a direct infusion (shotgun) lipidomics method to analyze gangliosides in small amounts of tissue reproducibly and with high sensitivity. We resolve the mouse ganglioside lipidome during development and adulthood and determine the ganglioside content of mice lacking the St3gal5 and B4galnt1 genes that synthesize most ganglioside species. Our results reveal substantial changes in the ganglioside lipidome during the formation of myelinated nerve fibers. In sum, we provide insights into the CNS ganglioside lipidome with a quantitative and sensitive mass spectrometry method. Since this method is compatible with global lipidomic profiling, it will provide insights into ganglioside function in physiology and pathology.
Competing Interests: Christian Klose and Michal A Surma are shareholders of Lipo-type GmbH. Melanie Weber, Cyrus Papan, and Markus Damm are employees of Lipo-type GmbH. Shengrong Li and Lisa Connell are employees of Avanti Lipids.
(© 2022 The Author(s).)