The ganglioside, GM1 affects the partitioning of NGF, its receptors, and microtubules in floating DRMs.

<p>GM1 was pre-incubated with cells at 65 µM. Control samples in the same experiment were treated identically except no GM1 was added. Cells were bound to ¹²⁵I-NGF and sonicated DRMs were floated on iodixanol equilibrium gradients as in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035163#pone-0035163-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a> (0 min). A) Western blots showing that TrkA and tubulin were increased in floating DRMs with GM1 treatment. B) ¹²⁵I-NGF in floating DRMs (left, plotted as in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035163#pone-0035163-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a>) increased with GM1 treatment (filled circles) compared to control (open triangles). The amount of ¹²⁵I-NGF in floating DRMs, plotted as a fraction of that in the whole cell as in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035163#pone-0035163-g002" target="_blank">Figure 2</a>, increased in GM1-treated cells (p<0.1). C) Data from western blots with anti-TrkA, -p75^NTR, -flotillin and -tubulin (indicated) were quantified and the amount in the floating DRM peak coincident with ¹²⁵I-NGF are plotted as the percent of the whole cell for control and GM1-treated cells. The amount of p75^NTR in the floating DRMs decreased by half (from 19% to 8%) after GM1 treatment (p<0.1). Flotillin was also decreased (p<0.1), while TrkA (p<0.1) and tubulin (p<0.01) were increased by GM1.