Sign Up for a Free Account

This is an image preview.
Start a Free Account
to view the full image.

  • Nearly 3,000 illustrations, including video clips of neurologic disorders.

  • Every article is reviewed by our esteemed Editorial Board for accuracy and currency.

  • Full spectrum of neurology in 1,200 comprehensive articles.

  • Listen to MedLink on the go with Audio versions of each article.

Alternative metabolic pathway of glucosylceramide (GlcCer) accumulation due to glucocerebrosidase (GCase) deficiency (1)

The expression of GCase varies from one cell type to another and depends on the tissue. In a mouse model of GCase deficiency (red cross), GlcCer is transformed via an alternative ceramidase pathway into glucosylsphingosine (red arrow), which is degraded by cytoplasmic GCase2 (GBA2 gene), active at a neutral pH, to sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), a very active metabolite (Mistry PK, Liu J, Sun L, et al. Glucocerebrosidase 2 gene deletion rescues type 1 Gaucher disease. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2014;111[13]:4934-9).

Abbreviations: GCase, glucocerebrosidase; GlcCer, glucosylceramide; S1P, sphingosine-1-phosphate.

(Source: Stirnemann J, Belmatoug N, Camou F, et al. A review of Gaucher disease pathophysiology, clinical presentation and treatments. Int J Mol Sci 2017;18[2]:441. Creative Commons Attribution [CC BY] License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.)