In the course of our continuing research on biologically active glycosphingolipids (GSLs) from echinoderms, a series of studies on the isolation and structure elucidation of GSLs from starfish have been performed in our laboratory. [1][2][3][4][5][6] In the study of the GSLs of the starfish Luidia maculata (yatsudesunahitode in Japanese), we reported on the isolation, structure and biological activities of cerebrosides, 7) ceramide lactosides, 8) sulfatide, 9) and gangliosides. 10,11) Continuing the previous studies, further isolation and characterization of the more polar ganglioside from L. maculata were conducted. In this paper, we report on the isolation and structure of a ganglioside molecular species from the whole bodies of L. maculata. The biological activity of the ganglioside is also reported.The polar lipid fraction, which was obtained from the chloroform/methanol extract of the whole bodies of L. maculata, was subjected to repeated column chromatography to give a polar compound, designated LMG-4 (1), showing a single spot on silica gel thin-layer chromatography (TLC).Compound 1 shows strong hydroxy and amide absorptions in the IR spectrum and has a positive reaction against resorcinol reagent.12) The negative FAB-MS exhibits a series of quasimolecular ion peaks [MϪH] Ϫ at m/z: 1500-1620. Therefore 1 is suggested to be a molecular species of ganglioside.The structure of the ceramide moiety was examined first. When 1 was methanolyzed with methanolic hydrochloric acid, a mixture of fatty acid methyl esters (FAM) and longchain bases (LCBs) was obtained. The FAM mixture was analyzed by GC-MS, which revealed the presence of three components. These were characterized as methyl 2-hydroxydocosanoate (major), methyl 2-hydroxytricosanoate, and methyl 2-hydroxytetracosanoate. The LCB mixture was found to be composed of such phytosphingosines as 2-amino-1,3,4-trihydroxy-heptadecane (major), 2-amino-1,3,4-trihydroxy-octadecane, and 2-amino-1,3,4-trihydroxy-nonadecane, based on GC-MS analysis of its TMS derivative (Chart 1).The structure of the sugar moiety of 1 was established as follows. The GC analysis of hexitol acetate derivatives of the neutral sugars, which were obtained by hydrolysis, reduction,