Abstract
Several biochemical (3, 5, 6, 24) and histochemical (1, 26) studies have demonstrated the presence of acid mucopolysaccharides (AMPS) in the central and peripheral nervous tissue. Many authors have investigated the presence of individual AMPS in various species. Although there is some disagreement about the percentage of individual AMPS in the nervous tissue, there is a general agreement about the occurrence of hyaluronic acid (HA), chondroitin sulphate A and C, dermatan sulphate, heparin and heparitin sulphate (HS) in the brain (4, 6, 7, 9, 19, 20). The need for AMPS in the maintenance of normal brain function is suggested by Young (25), who has demonstrated reversible neurological and electroencephalographic changes in cat after chronic intraventricular administration of hyaluronidase. Autoradiographic (10), histochemical (11) and biochemical studies (8, 12, 14) show that AMPS are present in neurons as well as in glial cells, but the presence of these macromolecules in myelin has not been proved until recently. The findings of Szabo and Roboz-Einstein (24) and of Wolman and Hestrin-Lerner (27) both showed that the white matter of the brain consists mainly of HA. The presence of “acid polysaccharides” observed during degeneration of myelin sheath led these authors to infer the participation of HA in the construction of myelin sheath. The results reported by Singh and Bachhawat (18) on AMPS content in rat brain before and during the peak of myelination support the previous suggestion (3) concerning the possible participation of AMPS in the process of the development of the myelin sheath. Dorfman and Ho (8) showed that clonal glial cells from the rat glial tumor and from mouse neuroblastoma (22, 23) are capable of synthesizing AMPS. These authors emphasized the role which these compounds might also have in the development of normal myelin in the brain.
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© 1980 Plenum Press, New York
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Rusić, M., Levental, M., Rakić, L. (1980). Acid Mucopolysaccharides and Myelin Development. In: Spatz, M., Mršulja, B.B., Rakić, L.M., Lust, W.D. (eds) Circulatory and Developmental Aspects of Brain Metabolism. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3836-9_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3836-9_24
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