Glycolipids

Glycolipids encompass a wide variety of compounds that contain both glycans (i.e., carbohydrates) and lipids. The type of lipid moiety and attached carbohydrate(s) determine the categories and subcategories, which include: fatty acyl glycolipids, glycosphingolipids (cerebrosides, globosides, gangliosides, sulfatides and others), glycoglycerolipids, glycophospholipids (e.g., phosphatidylinositols), glycosylated prenols (e.g., dolichol-phospho-glycans), glycosylated sterols, glycosylated polyketides and saccharolipids. This review provides a brief overview of the types of functions these compounds perform, the structural features of the different categories, and a few examples of how structural diversity is achieved. Although the “glycolipidolome” is formidably large, it is becoming more assessable to characterization as the tools of the “omics” revolution expand to include mass spectrometry and other techniques for structural analysis.