Ganglioside biosynthesis in mouse cells: Glycosyltransferase activities in normal and virally-transformed lines

The activities of four glycosyltransferases involved in ganglioside biosynthesis were measured in two different established mouse cell lines and in the SV40 and polyoma transformed variants of these lines. The only consistent change observed was the very reduced activity of UDP-GalNAc: hematoside N-acetyl-galactosaminyltransferase in all of the transformed cell lines (15–20% of normal cells). There was no significant differences in any of the glycosyltransferases with increased cell density and cell-to-cell contact.