Sialic acid
Sialic acid is a derivative of a nine-carbon monosaccharide.
Sialic Acid was named from the Greek Sialos for Saliva. It is the negative charge of this ubiquitous chemical that is responsible for the slippery feel of saliva and mucins coating the body?s organs. Despite its role of acting as ?decoy? for invading pathogens, sialic acid is increasingly becoming known as an agent necessary for mediating ganglioside distribution and structures in the brain. Work in the 1980?s identified sialic acid supplementation in (suckling) rats to alter behaviour and increase performance in various mazes, suggesting a role in learning and memory. However work in out lab is focussing on the role of virility that sialic acid endow.
With the use of adult rat models, we have shown that sialic acid (namely the NeuAc form) acts as an agent to increasing the number of copulations between mating pairs. A transgenic rodent with reduced sexual appetite (kindly donated by the Kitawaga lab, Japan) was used to see whether oral and intraperitoneal doses of sialic acid increased sexual drive. Within one week the number of copulations of this rat model increased to amounts close to that of rats of virility. Numerous other mating pairs have been set up and we are currently waiting for the exciting results.
This article is a stub. You can help BambooWeb by .
External links:
[may be useful for expanding article]
