No abstract

Digestion of chick-embryo cartilage proteoglycan (type H) with chondroitin AC II lyase or keratanase, in the presence of EDTA, N-ethylmaleimide, phenylmethanesulphonyl fluoride and pepstatin, resulted in the removal of the bulk of the chondroitin sulphate or keratan sulphate chains respectively, without altering the protein portion of the macromolecule. An exhaustive treatment of the proteoglycan with chondroitin AC II lyase followed by digestion with keratanase yielded a core fraction having the enzymically modified linkage oligosaccharides. Zonal sedimentation of this core preparation on a sucrose gradient in 0.5% SDS resulted in a single narrow band with a sedimentation coefficient of 6S. In 4 M-guanidinium chloride, the core preparation showed a tendency to aggregate to multiple-molecular-weight forms which could dissociate in the presence of Triton X-100. The results indicate that the preponderance of glycosaminoglycans in the proteoglycan molecule is a main reason for both polydispersity and hydrophilicity of the proteoglycan preparation, and further suggest that the enzymic procedures could prove useful as a method to obtain new information about the structure and properties of proteoglycan core molecules.

Interferon regulatory factor-5 (IRF5), a transcription factor critical for the induction of innate immune responses, contributes to the pathogenesis of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in humans and mice. Lyn, a Src family kinase, is also implicated in human SLE, and Lyn-deficient mice develop an SLE-like disease. Here, we found that Lyn physically interacted with IRF5 to inhibit ubiquitination and phosphorylation of IRF5 in the TLR-MyD88 pathway, thereby suppressing the transcriptional activity of IRF5 in a manner independent of Lyn's kinase activity. Conversely, Lyn did not inhibit NF-κB signaling, another major branch downstream of MyD88. Monoallelic deletion of Irf5 alleviated the hyperproduction of cytokines in TLR-stimulated Lyn(-/-) dendritic cells and the development of SLE-like symptoms in Lyn(-/-) mice. Our results reveal a role for Lyn as a specific suppressor of the TLR-MyD88-IRF5 pathway and illustrate the importance of fine-tuning IRF5 activity for the maintenance of immune homeostasis.

Binding of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) to the extracellular matrix of cultured bovine aorta smooth muscle cells is likely to be mediated via heparan sulphate, since not only exogenous addition of heparan sulphate to the culture medium but also pretreatment of the cells with heparitinase (but not chondroitinase ABC) resulted in loss of binding. Comparison of the affinity of bFGF to various glycosaminoglycan-conjugated gels showed a direct and specific binding of bFGF to heparan sulphate. Heparan sulphate also bound to a bFGF affinity gel. However, the proportion of heparan sulphate bound varied depending on the source of the HS (more than 90% and 45% with pig aorta heparan sulphate and mouse EHS tumour heparan sulphate respectively). The bound heparan sulphate had the ability to protect bFGF from proteolytic digestion, but the unbound heparan sulphate did not. The results suggest the presence in the bound heparan sulphate of a specific structure involved in binding. Limited digestion with heparitinase I of porcine aorta heparan sulphate yielded 13% oligosaccharides bound to the gel, of which the smallest were octasaccharides. Analysis of a hexadecasaccharide fraction which was obtained at the highest yield among the bound oligosaccharides was performed by h.p.l.c. of the deamination products obtained with nitrous acid and the unsaturated disaccharide products formed by heparitinase digestion. Comparison of the disaccharide unit compositions exhibited a marked difference in IdoA(2SO4)GlcNSO3 and IdoA(2SO4)GlcNSO3(6SO4) units between the bound and unbound hexadecasaccharides. The amounts measured were 3 mol and 1 mol per mol of the former and 0.4 mol and 0.6 mol per mol of the latter. It is likely that the binding of bFGF to heparan sulphate may require the domain structure of the heparan sulphate to be composed of clustering IdoA(2SO4)-GlcNSO3 units.

No abstract

A series of aryl and alkyl O-beta-D-xylosides and their analogues with S, NH or CH2 in the glycosidic linkage were prepared and examined for their ability to act as artificial chain initiators of chondroitin (dermatan) sulphate synthesis in embryonic chick cartilage, foetal rat skin and 6-week-old-rat aorta under conditions where normal protein-core synthesis was inhibited by cycloheximide. For all these tissues in culture, phenyl O-beta-D-xyloside and phenyl beta-D-thioxyloside were clearly more effective than the corresponding N-xyloside and homo-C-xyloside. Introduction of a carboxy group to the para position of their aglycone yielded derivatives with far lower initiator activity. In a concentration range lower than 0.1 mM, the effectiveness of alkyl beta-D-thioxyloside was greatly influenced by the carbon number (n) of the alkyl group and was at a maximum at n = 7 or 8 for the cartilage, at n = 5 for the skin and at n = 4 for the aorta. In the beta-xyloside-treated cartilages, the average length of newly formed chondroitin sulphate chains reflected the chain-initiator activity of added xyloside, i.e. the higher the initiator activity, the shorter the average chain length. In the skin and aorta, none of the drugs could relieve the inhibition of heparan sulphate synthesis caused by cycloheximide. Fertilized hens' eggs were each injected on day 9 with 9.2 mumol of beta-xyloside and the skeletal systems of embryos were examined a week later. The embryos treated with beta-xylosides of relatively high initiator activity showed a 30-40% decrease in the overall growth rate of skeletons, whereas those treated with beta-xylosides of low initiator activity showed little or no decrease in the growth rate. The results are consistent with the notion that the observed change in skeletal morphology results mainly, if not completely, from beta-xyloside-induced synthesis of core-protein-free chondroitin sulphate, and further suggest that a procedure employing a series of beta-xyloside homologues with various initiator activities will furnish an easily applied criterion on which to test the specificity of xyloside action on biological processes.

No abstract

Crude enzyme obtained from chondroitin sulfate-induced Proteus vulgaris NCTC 4636 has been fractionated into 1) an endoeliminase capable of depolymerizing chondroitin sulfate and related polysaccharides to produce, as end products, a mixture of ⌬ 4 -unsaturated tetra-and disaccharides and 2) an exoeliminase preferentially acting on chondroitin sulfate tetra-and hexasaccharides to yield the respective disaccharides. Isolation of the two enzymes was achieved by a simple two-step procedure: extracting the enzymes from intact P. vulgaris cells with a buffer solution of nonionic surfactant and then treating the extract by cation-exchange chromatography. Each of the enzymes thus prepared was apparently homogeneous as assessed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and readily crystallized from polyethylene glycol solutions. Both enzymes acted on various substrates such as chondroitin sulfate, chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan, and dermatan sulfate at high, but significantly different, initial rates. They also attacked hyaluronan but at far lower rates and were inactive to keratan sulfate, heparan sulfate, and heparin. Our results show that the known ability of the conventional enzyme called "chondroitinase ABC" to catalyze the complete depolymerization of chondroitin sulfates to unsaturated disaccharides may actually result from the combination reactions by endoeliminase (chondroitin sulfate ABC endolyase) and exoeliminase (chondroitin sulfate ABC exolyase).Chondroitin sulfate ABC lyase (EC 4.2.2.4) was first purified from extracts of Proteus vulgaris NCTC 4636 adapted to chondroitin 6-sulfate (1). It is believed to be an endoeliminase that splits ␤1,4-galactosaminidic bonds between N-acetylgalactosamine and either D-glucuronic acid or L-iduronic acid and degrades, therefore, a variety of glycosaminoglycans of the chondroitin sulfate and dermatan sulfate type to the respective unsaturated disaccharides. Using this enzyme, both chondroitin sulfates and dermatan sulfates were shown to contain, in addition to predominant 4-or 6-sulfated disaccharide residues, a smaller proportion of nonsulfated or disulfated disaccharide residues, or both (2). A variety of studies have since shown that the proportion of these disaccharide residues varies greatly with species and anatomical sites, during development and aging, and in pathology (3-11 among others). Many of these data suggest that variation in the carbohydrate sequence and sulfation pattern may be used to specify the functional properties of chondroitin sulfate and dermatan sulfate proteoglycans.There is a commercially available chondroitin sulfate ABC lyase ("chondroitinase ABC" from P. vulgaris, the product of Seikagaku Corp.) which has found wide applications including the quantification of chondroitin sulfate and dermatan sulfate (12), the structural analysis of the carbohydrate moiety of proteoglycans (13-16), the preparation of core proteins from proteoglycans (13, 17), the formation of antigenic epitopes to prepare anti-proteoglycan monoclonal antibodies (18), and ...