Figure 8. Lipid alterations in ceramide biosynthesis pathway.

The pathway for biosynthesis of ceramides is shown with individual ceramide classes indicated as a schematic within yellow rectangles along with their relative abundance in controls (blue circle) and the patient (red circle). The whiskers represent minimum and maximum values observed for controls. Left and right ends of the box indicate the first and third quartiles of the abundance in controls, respectively, while the vertical line inside the box represents the mean abundance. The enzyme galactosyl transferase catalyzes transfer of hexose (green squares) to produce trihexosylceramide from dihexosylceramide and N-acetylhexosaminyl transferase synthesizes N-acetylhexosaminyl-trihexosylceramide by transferring N-acetylhexosamine (orange square) to trihexosylceramide.