Characterization of a Novel Triphosphonooctaosylceramide from the Eggs of the Sea Hare, Aplysia kurodai1

golipid, named EGL-II, from the eggs of Aplysia. By component analysis, sugar analysis, permethylation studies, fast atom bombardment-mass spectrometry, secondary ion mass spectrometry, and proton magnetic resonance spectrometry, its structure was re-vealed to be as follows: Galal->3(GlcNAcal->2)Galal->3(3-O-MeGalal->2)Galal->3[6'-O-(2-aminoethylphosphonyl)Galal->2K2-aminoethylphosphonyl->6)Gaipi->4(2-amino-ethylphosphonyl—>6)Glcpi—>lceramide. The major aliphatic components of the ceramide are palmitic acid, stearic acid, and anteisononadeca-4-sphingenine. Key words: 2-AEPre, Aplysia kurodai, egg mass, phosphonoglycosphingolipid, SIMS. In our systematic studies on the structures of glycolipids in tissues of a sea hare, Aplysia kurodai, a new group of gly-colipids containing 2-aminoethylphosphonate (2-AEP/i), which belongs to a family of phosphonoglycosphingolipids (P/iGSL), has been detected (1). PrcGSLs seem to be unique to mollusca (2-13) and crustaceans (14), and have not yet been found in Deuterostomia. On the other hand, siali