Gangliosides
Lipid compounds at the heart of infant nutrition issues
The brains of infants begin developing from the very first days of life.
Gangliosides, naturally present in breast milk, play a central role in the development of infants’ brains, immune systems and digestive systems. To best reproduce these benefits in infant milks, their characterization is becoming a strategic challenge for R&D teams involved in infant nutrition.
Understanding gangliosides
Gangliosides are complex lipids composed of a ceramide (lipid base) and a carbohydrate chain containing one or more sialic acid (or N-acetylneuraminic acid, NANA) residues.
Three main classes can be distinguished according to their structure:
- GM: monosialogangliosides
- GD: disialogangliosides
- GT: trisialogangliosides
This structural diversity confers multiple functions on gangliosides, but makes their analysis particularly complex.
ITERG expertise at the service of infant nutrition
In response to this complexity, ITERG’s Nutrition LifeSciences Unit has developed a reliable, reproducible analytical method based on liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole detection.
This method enables :
- Precise quantification of gangliosides in infant milks and dairy products,
- Establish a complete molecular profile (GM, GD, GT),
- Support the formulation of products with profiles as close as possible to those of breast milk.
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