Stem Cell Glycolipids

Glycolipids are compounds containing one or more monosaccharide residues bound by a glycosidic linkage to a hydrophobic moiety. Because of their expression patterns and the intracellular localization patterns, glycolipids, including stage-specific embryonic antigens (SSEA-3, SSEA-4, and possibly SSEA-1) and gangliosides (e.g., GD3, GD2, and A2B5 antigens), have been used as marker molecules of stem cells. In this review, I will introduce glycolipids expressed in pluripotent stem cells (embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, very small embryonic-like stem cells, amniotic stem cells, and multilineage-differentiating stress enduring cells), multipotent stem cells (neural stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, fetal liver multipotent progenitor cells, and hematopoietic stem cells), and cancer stem cells (brain cancer stem cells and breast cancer stem cells), and discuss their availability as biomarkers for identifying and isolating stem cells.