Effect of neonatal thiamine and vitamin A deficiency on rat brain gangliosides.

Effects of neonatal thiamine deficiency and vitamin A deficiency on total and fractions of gangliosides (GT1, GD1a, GD1b and GM1) were studied in Charles Foster rat brain at 21 days of age. GT1, GD1b+GD1a and GM1 are being presented here as poly-, di- and mono-sialo gangliosides. Thiamine and vitamin A deficiencies were induced by feeding mothers essentially thiamine and vitamin A free diets respectively. A normal control (G+L+) and weight matched undernourished groups (G+L- for thiamine and LL for vitamin A experiments) were used for comparison. At 21 days, the concentration of total gangliosides in thiamine deficient and G+L- rat brains were 49.0% and 45.7%; in vitamin A deficient and LL group were 66.6% and 88.0% of the G+L+ group, respectively. The percent contribution of poly-, di- and mono-sialo gangliosides in G+L+/thiamine deficient/G+L- were; 17.2/46.8/73.5, 54.4/51.7/14.2, and 6.6/8.7/5.8, respectively. The percent contribution of poly-, di- and mono-sialo gangliosides in G+L+/vitamin A deficient/LL were; 19.3/39.9/43.7, 57.0/37.6/35.1, and 8.4/11.6/19.7 respectively. The changes observed in these experiments suggest an underlying possibility of metabolic defect in undernourished animals.