Sialic acid

Common card · No. 410588

Sialic acids are a class of alpha-keto acid sugars with a nine-carbon backbone. The term "sialic acid" (from Greek σίαλον (síalon) 'saliva') was first introduced by Swedish biochemist Gunnar Blix in 1952. The most common member of this group is N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac or NANA) found in animals and some prokaryotes. Sialic acids are found widely distributed in animal tissues and related forms are found to a lesser extent in other organisms like in some micro-algae, bacteria and archaea. Sialic acids are commonly part of glycoproteins, glycolipids or gangliosides, where they decorate the end of sugar chains at the surface of cells or soluble proteins. However, sialic acids have been also observed in Drosophila embryos and other insects. Generally, plants seem not to contain or display sialic acids. In humans, the brain has the highest sialic acid content, where these acids play an important role in neural transmission and ganglioside structure in synaptogenesis. More than 50 kinds...

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