Review Article

A Hypothesis Concerning a Potential Involvement of Ceramide in Apoptosis and Acantholysis Induced by Pemphigus Autoantibodies

Figure 1

Ceramide Metabolism. Ceramide is produced de novo via serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT) and ceramide synthase (CerS), or from sphingomyelin via sphingomyelinase (SMase), and induces apoptosis. In turn, ceramide is metabolized via multiple mechanisms, including glucosylceramide synthase (GCS), ceramidase (CDase) sphingosine kinase (SphK), and sphingomyelin synthase (SMS), with this metabolism of ceramide allowing cell survival.
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