Cerebrosides from Marine Organisms

Abstract

Cerebrosides, mainly gluco-and galactocerebrosides, constitute a higly diverse and complex class of molecules, which exhibit importat physiological functions. Marine organisms have shown to be a source of new cerebrosides containing unique novel long-chain bases derived from sphingosine ((2S,3R,4E)-2-aminooctadecene-1,3-diol)and (2S,3R,4R-4-hydroxysphingosinein their ceramide moieties. recently, new efforts have attempted to characterize their structures in very complex mixtures, mainly by NMR and mass spectrometry techniques. This repot offers a generla view of the structural characteristics of these compounds, their biological activities and recent advances in their characterization by HPLC-MS/MS and NMR.