Structure and Structural Properties of the Gangliosides.

We describe here the primary and secondary structure of gangliosides, focusing on their structural variety that leads gangliosides to be an incredibly large family of amphiphilic compounds. Each ganglioside, due to the structural differences, displays a specific amphiphilicity and all this allows a different behavior of the ganglioside monomer inserted into the membrane. The structural differences allow gangliosides to exhibit different interaction and organizing properties at the cell surface. Some aspects of the ganglioside chemical, physicochemical, and biological properties are discussed in this chapter.