Abstract
Polysialic acid is a linear homopolymer of sialic acid that is widely expressed in the fetal brain but is expressed only in some limited regions of the adult brain where somehow remain a high degree of neuroplasticity. Conventionally, it is considered to be an anti-adhesion molecule owing to its physicochemical properties. However, it has recently been shown that it directly binds bioactive molecules involved in brain development and higher brain functions and comprehensively regulates their actions near the cell surface. Recently, postmortem brain and large-scale comparative genomic analyses have revealed an association between polysialic acid and its biosynthetic enzyme, ST8SIA2, and psychiatric disorders. In this review, I discuss polysialic acid and the effects of various single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on ST8SIA2, focusing on the results of biochemical analyses.
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