scholarly journals Proteoglycans of the intervertebral disc. Absence of degradation during the isolation of proteoglycans from the intervertebral disc

1979 ◽  
Vol 179 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
R L Stevens ◽  
P G Dondi ◽  
H Muir

Proteoglycans extracted with 4M-guanidinium chloride from pig intervetebral discs, and purified by equilibrium density-gradient centrifugation in CsCl, were of smaller hydrodynamic size than those extracted and purified in the same way from the laryngeal cartilage of the same animal. Whether this difference in size arose from degradation during the extraction and purification of the proteoglycans of the disc was investigated. Purified proteoglycans labelled either in the chondroitin sulphate chains or in the core protein were obtained from laryngeal cartilage by short-term organ culture. These labelled proteoglycans were added at the beginning of the extraction of the disc proteoglycans, and labelled cartilage and unlabelled disc proteoglycans were isolated and purified together. There was no appreciable loss of radioactivity after density-gradient centrifugation nor decrease in hydrodynamic size of the labelled cartilage proteoglycans on chromatography on Sepharose 2B, when these were present during the extraction of disc proteoglycans. It is concluded that disc proteoglycans are intrinsically of smaller size than cartilage proteoglycans and this difference in size does not arise from degradation during the extraction.

1972 ◽  
Vol 126 (4) ◽  
pp. 791-803 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. E. Hardingham ◽  
Helen Muir

The kinetics of incorporation of [35S]sulphate into slices of pig laryngeal cartilage in vitro was linear with time up to 6h. The specific radioactivities of the extracted proteoglycans (containing about 80% of the uronic acid of the cartilage) and the glycosaminoglycans remaining in the tissue after extraction were measured after various times of continuous and ‘pulse–chase’ radioactivity incorporation. Radioactivity was present in the isolated chondroitin sulphate after 2 min, but there was a 35min delay in its appearance in the extractable proteoglycan fraction. Fractionation of the proteoglycans by gel chromatography showed that the smallest molecules had the highest specific radioactivity, but ‘pulse–chase’ experiments over 5h did not demonstrate any precursor–product relationships between fractions of different size. Equilibrium density-gradient centrifugation in 4m-guanidine hydrochloride showed that among the proteoglycan fractions the specific radioactivity increased as the chondroitin sulphate content decreased, but with preparations from ‘pulse–chase’ experiments there was again no evidence for precursor–product relationships between the different fractions. Differences in radioactive incorporation would seem to reflect metabolic heterogeneity within the proteoglycans extracted from cartilage. This may be due either to a partial separation of different types of proteoglycans or to differences in the rates of degradation of the molecules of different size and composition as a result of the nature and specificity of the normal degrading enzymes. The results suggest that molecules of all sizes were formed at the same time.


1984 ◽  
Vol 222 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Tengblad ◽  
R H Pearce ◽  
B J Grimmer

Proteoglycan aggregates free of non-aggregating proteoglycan have been prepared from the annuli fibrosi and nuclei pulposi of intervertebral discs of three human lumbar spines by extraction with 4M-guanidinium chloride, associative density gradient centrifugation, and chromatography on Sepharose CL-2B. The aggregate (A1-2B.V0) was subjected to dissociative density-gradient ultracentrifugation. Three proteins of Mr 38 900, 44 200 and 50 100 found in the fraction of low buoyant density (A1-2B.V0-D4) reacted with antibodies to link protein from newborn human articular cartilage. After reduction with mercaptoethanol, two proteins of Mr 43 000 and two of Mr 20 000 and 14 000 were seen. The A1-2B.V0-D4 fraction, labelled with 125I, coeluted with both hyaluronate and a hyaluronate oligosaccharide (HA14) on a Sepharose CL-2B column. HA10 and HA14 reduced the viscosity of A1 fractions; HA4, HA6 and HA8 did not. HA14 decreased the viscosity of disc proteoglycans less than it did that of bovine cartilage proteoglycans. Thus, although a link protein was present in human intervertebral disc, it stabilized proteoglycan aggregates less well than did the link protein from bovine nasal cartilage.


1975 ◽  
Vol 149 (3) ◽  
pp. 657-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Baxter ◽  
H Muir

Proteoglycans extracted with 4M-guanidinium chloride from pig laryngeal cartilage and bovine nasal septum were purified by density-gradient centrifugation in CsCl under ‘associative’ followed by ‘dissociative’ conditions [Hascall & Sajdera (1969) J. Biol. Chem.244, 2384-2396]. Proteoglycans were then digested exhaustively with testicular hyaluronidase, which removed about 80% of the chondroitin sulphate. The hyaluronidase was purified until no proteolytic activity was detectable under the conditions used for digestion. The resulting ‘core’ proteins of both species were fractionated by a sequence of gel-chromatographic procedures which gave four major fractions of decreasing hydrodynamic size. Those that on electrophoresis penetrated 5.6% (w/v) polyacrylamide gels migrated as discrete bands whose mobility increased with decreasing hydrodynamic size. The unfractionated ‘core’ proteins had the same N-terminal amino acids as the intact proteoglycan, suggesting that no peptide bonds had been cleaved during hyaluronidase digestion. Alanine predominated as the N-terminal residue in all the fractions of both species. Fractions were analysed for amino acid, amino sugar, uronic acid and neutral sugar compositions. In pig ‘core’ proteins, the glutamic acid content increased significantly with hydrodynamic size, but in bovine ‘core’ proteins this trend was less marked. Significant differences in amino acid composition between fractions suggested that in each species there was more than one variety of proteoglycan. The molar proportions of xylose to serine destroyed on alkaline β-elimination were equivalent in most fractions, indicating that the serine residues destroyed were attached to the terminal xylose of chondroitin sulphate chains. The ratio of serine residues to threonine residues destroyed on β-elimination, was similar in all fractions of both species. Since the fractions of smallest hydrodynamic size contained less keratan sulphate than those of larger size, it implies that in the former the keratan sulphate chains were shorter than in the latter.


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