Gangliosides1 are acidic glycosphingolipids that form lipid rafts in the outer leaflet of the cell plasma membrane, especially in neuronal cells in the central nervous system.2 They participate in cellular proliferation, differentiation, adhesion, signal transduction, cell-to-cell interactions, tumorigenesis, and metastasis. Fucosyl-GM1 is a tumor associated ganglioside and is an antigen expressed in small cell lung cancer that is being investigated as a target for vaccines against cancer cells.3 It has been found that Fucosyl-GM1 demonstrates some of the same binding properties as the similar GM1 ganglioside such as affinity for cholera toxin B subunit and interaction with amyloid-beta protein.4
