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Serglycin is a proteoglycan expressed by some malignant cells. It promotes metastasis and protects some tumor cells from complement system attack. In the present study, we show for the first time the in situ expression of serglycin by breast cancer cells by immunohistochemistry in patients' material. Moreover, we demonstrate high expression and constitutive secretion of serglycin in the aggressive MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line. Serglycin exhibited a strong cytoplasmic staining in these cells, observable at the cell periphery in a thread of filaments near the cell membrane, but also in filopodia-like structures. Serglycin was purified from conditioned medium of MDA-MB-231 cells, and represented the major proteoglycan secreted by these cells, having a molecular size of ~ 250 kDa and carrying chondroitin sulfate side chains, mainly composed of 4-sulfated (~ 87%), 6-sulfated (~ 10%) and non-sulfated (~ 3%) disaccharides. Purified serglycin inhibited early steps of both the classical and the lectin pathways of complement by binding to C1q and mannose-binding lectin. Stable expression of serglycin in less aggressive MCF-7 breast cancer cells induced their proliferation, anchorage-independent growth, migration and invasion. Interestingly, over-expression of serglycin lacking the glycosaminoglycan attachment sites failed to promote these cellular functions, suggesting that glycanation of serglycin is a pre-requisite for its oncogenic properties. Our findings suggest that serglycin promotes a more aggressive cancer cell phenotype and may protect breast cancer cells from complement attack supporting their survival and expansion.

Studies carried out during the last 2 decades have dramatically increased our knowledge of the pathways and mechanisms of intracellular membrane traffic, most recently due to the developments in light microscopy and in vivo imaging of fluorescent fusion proteins. These studies have also revealed that certain molecules do not behave according to the classical transportation rules first documented in cell biology textbooks in the 1980s and 1990s. Initially, unconventional mechanisms of secretion that do not involve passage of cargo through the stacked Golgi cisternae were thought to confer on cells the ability to discard excess amounts of protein products. With time, however, more physiological mechanisms and roles have been proposed for an increasing number of secretory processes that bypass the Golgi apparatus.

Different classes of glycans are implicated as mediators of apical protein sorting in the secretory pathway of epithelial cells, but recent research indicates that sorting to the apical and basolateral surfaces may occur before completion of glycan synthesis. We have previously shown that a proteoglycan (PG) core protein can obtain different glycosaminoglycan (GAG) structures in the apical and basolateral secretory routes (Tveit H, Dick G, Skibeli V, Prydz K. 2005. A proteoglycan undergoes different modifications en route to the apical and basolateral surfaces of Madin-Darby canine kidney cells. J Biol Chem. 280:29596-29603) of epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells. We have now also determined the detailed N-glycan structures acquired by a single glycoprotein species in the same apical and basolateral secretory pathways. For this purpose, rat growth hormone (rGH) with two N-glycan sites (rGH-2N) inserted into the rGH portion (NAS and NFT) was fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) and expressed in MDCK cells. Immunoisolated rGH variants were analyzed for site occupancy and N-glycan structure by mass spectrometry. The extent of NAS and NFT site occupancy was different, but comparable for rGH-2N secreted apically and basolaterally. Microheterogeneity existed for the glycans attached to each N-glycan site, but no major differences were observed in the apical and basolateral pathways. Transfer of the GAG modification domain from the PG serglycin to the fusion site of rGH-2N and GFP allowed polymerization of GAG chains onto the novel protein variant and influenced the microheterogeneity of the N-glycans toward more acidic glycans, but did not alter the relative site occupancy. In conclusion, no major differences were observed for N-glycan structures obtained by the expressed model proteins in the apical and basolateral secretory pathways of epithelial MDCK cells, but insertion of a GAG attachment domain shifted the N-glycans to more acidic structures.

The sulphation patterns of glycosaminoglycan (GAG) chains are decisive for the biological activity of their proteoglycan (PG) templates for sugar chain polymerization and sulphation. The amounts and positions of sulphate groups are often determined by HPLC analysis of disaccharides resulting from enzymatic degradation of the GAG chains. While heparan sulphate (HS) and heparin are specifically degraded by heparitinases, chondroitinases not only degrade chondroitin sulphate (CS) and dermatan sulphate (DS), but also the protein-free and unsulphated GAG hyaluronan (HA). Thus, disaccharide preparations derived by chondroitinase degradation may be contaminated by HA disaccharides. The latter will often comigrate in HPLC chromatograms with unsulphated disaccharides derived from CS. We have investigated how variation of pH, amount of enzyme, and incubation time affects disaccharide formation from CS and HA GAG chains. This allowed us to establish conditions where chondroitinase degrades CS completely for quantification of all the resulting disaccharides, with negligible degradation of HA, allowing subsequent HA analysis. In addition, we present simple methodology for disaccharide analysis of small amounts of CS attached to a hybrid PG carrying mostly HS after immune isolation. Both methods are applicable to small amounts of GAGs synthesized by polarized epithelial cells cultured on permeable supports., (2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The ephrins are a family of proteins known to bind the Eph (erythropoietin-producing hepatocellular) receptor tyrosine kinase family. In the present paper, we provide data showing that ephrin-B3 binds a sulfated cell-surface protein on HEK-293T (human embryonic kidney-293 cells expressing the large T-antigen of simian virus 40) and HeLa cells, a binding that is nearly completely blocked by treatment of these cell lines with chlorate or heparinase, or by addition of the heavily sulfated glycosaminoglycan heparin. This indicates that heparan sulfate on these cells is essential for cell-surface binding of ephrin-B3. Heparin did not affect ephrin-B3 binding to EphB receptors expressed on transfected HEK-293T cells, indicating further that ephrin-B3 binds an alternative receptor which is a heparan sulfate proteoglycan. Site-directed mutagenesis analysis revealed that Arg178 and Lys179 are important for heparin binding of ephrin-B3 and also for ephrin-B3 binding to cells. These amino acids, when introduced in the non-heparin-binding ephrin-B1, conferred the heparin-binding property. Functional studies reveal that ephrin-B3 binding to cells induces cellular signalling and influences cell rounding and cell spreading. In conclusion, our data provide evidence for an unknown ephrin-B3-binding cell-surface proteoglycan involved in cellular signalling.

Proteins leave the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) for the plasma membrane via the classical secretory pathway, but routes bypassing the Golgi apparatus have also been observed. Apical and basolateral protein secretion in epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells display differential sensitivity to Brefeldin A (BFA), where low concentrations retard apical transport, while basolateral transport still proceeds through intact Golgi cisternae. We now describe that BFA-mediated retardation of glycoprotein and proteoglycan transport through the Golgi apparatus induces surface transport of molecules lacking Golgi modifications, possessing those acquired in the ER. Low concentrations of BFA induces apical Golgi bypass, while higher concentrations were required to induce basolateral Golgi bypass. Addition of the KDEL ER-retrieval sequence to model protein cores allowed observation of apical Golgi bypass in untreated MDCK cells. Basolateral Golgi bypass was only observed after the addition of BFA or upon cholesterol depletion. Thus, in MDCK cells, an apical Golgi bypass route can transport cargo from pre-Golgi organelles in untreated cells, while the basolateral bypass route is inducible.

Cytoplasmic localization of the prion protein (PrP) has been observed in different species and cell types. We have investigated this poorly understood phenomenon by expressing fusion proteins of sheep prion protein and green fluorescent protein ((GFP)PrP) in N2a cells, with variable sequence context surrounding the start codon Met(1). (GFP)PrP expressed with the wild-type sequence was transported normally through the secretory pathway to the cell surface with acquisition of N-glycan groups, but two N-terminal fragments of (GFP)PrP were detected intracellularly, starting in frame from Met(17). When (GFP)PrP was expressed with a compromised Kozak sequence ((GFP)PrP*), dispersed intracellular fluorescence was observed. A similar switch from pericellular to intracellular PrP localization was seen when analogous constructs of sheep PrP, without inserted GFP, were expressed, showing that this phenomenon is not caused by the GFP tag. Western blotting revealed a reduction in glycosylated forms of (GFP)PrP*, whereas the N-terminal fragments starting from Met(17) were still present. Formation of these N-terminal fragments was completely abolished when Met(17) was replaced by Thr, indicating that leaky ribosomal scanning occurs for normal sheep PrP and that translation from Met(17) is the cause of the aberrant cytoplasmic localization observed for a fraction of the protein. In contrast, the same phenomenon was not detected upon expression of similar constructs for mouse PrP. Analysis of samples from sheep brain allowed immunological detection of N-terminal PrP fragments, indicating that sheep PrP is subject to similar processing mechanisms in vivo.

PGs (proteoglycans) are proteins acquiring long, linear and sulfated GAG (glycosaminoglycan) chains during Golgi passage. In MDCK cells (Madin-Darby canine kidney cells), most of the CS (chondroitin sulfate) PGs are secreted apically, whereas most of the HS (heparan sulfate) PGs are secreted basolaterally. The apical and basolateral secretory routes differ in their GAG synthesis, since a protein core that traverses both routes acquires shorter chains, but more sulfate, in the basolateral pathway than in the apical counterpart [Tveit, Dick, Skibeli and Prydz (2005) J. Biol. Chem. 280, 29596-29603]. Golgi cisternae and the trans-Golgi network have slightly acidic lumens. We therefore investigated how neutralization of endomembrane compartments with the vacuolar H(+)-ATPase inhibitor Baf A(1) (bafilomycin A(1)) affected GAG synthesis and PG sorting in MDCK cells. Baf A(1) induced a slight reduction in basolateral secretion of macromolecules, which was compensated by an apical increase. More dramatic changes occurred to PG synthesis in the apical pathway on neutralization. The difference in apical and basolateral PG sulfation levels observed for control cells was abolished, due to enhanced sulfation of apical CS-GAGs. In addition, a large fraction of apical HS-GAGs was elongated to longer chain lengths. The differential sensitivity of the apical and basolateral secretory pathways to Baf A(1) indicates that the apical pathway is more acidic than the basolateral counterpart in untreated MDCK cells. Neutralization gave an apical GAG output that was more similar to that of the basolateral pathway, suggesting that neutralization made the luminal environments of the two pathways more similar.

Mast cell granule maturation and storage of granule components has previously been shown to be critically dependent on serglycin (SG), a proteoglycan abundantly stored in mast cell secretory granules. The N-terminal portion of serglycin contains a conserved disulfide motif that is similar to motifs found in secretory granule compounds of neuroendocrine cells. Interference with such motifs of neuroendocrine cells with dithiothreitol (DTT) has previously been shown to cause cellular missorting. To investigate the implication for serglycin, serglycin(+/+) and serglycin(-/-) bone marrow derived mast cells (BMMCs) were treated with DTT followed by assessment of proteoglycan synthesis and secretory granule integrity. Treatment of serglycin(+/+) BMMCs with DTT almost completely abolished biosynthetic incorporation of (35)S-sulfate into proteoglycans, caused a dramatic reduction of granular staining with May Grünwald/Giemsa as well as disruption of granule dense core formation as shown by transmission electron microscopy. In addition, the storage of carboxypeptidase A, a major secretory granule compound, was markedly reduced following DTT treatment. In contrast, none of these effects were seen after treatment of SG(-/-) BMMCs with DTT, indicating that they were serglycin-specific. Notably, DTT treated serglycin(+/+) BMMCs showed similar morphology as did the serglycin(-/-) BMMCs. DTT treatment affected neither the viability of the BMMCs nor the mRNA levels for serglycin or carboxypeptidase A. Together, these data indicate that DTT causes dramatic, serglycin-specific effects on mast cell granule. These findings are thus in accordance with a role for the N-terminal disulfide motif in serglycin for regulation of mast cell secretory granule integrity.

The secretory route in eukaryotic cells has been regarded as one common pathway from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) through the Golgi cisternae to the trans Golgi network where recognition, sorting and exit of cargo molecules are thought to occur. Morphologically, the ribosome-coated ER is observed throughout the cytoplasm, while the Golgi apparatus usually is confined to a perinuclear position in mammalian cells. However, Golgi outposts have been observed in neuronal dendrites and dispersed Golgi elements in skeletal muscle myofibers. In insects, like in Drosophila melanogaster imaginal disc cells and epidermal cells of Tobacco and Arabidopsis leafs, individual Golgi stacks are distributed throughout the cytoplasm. Golgi stacks do not only differ in their intracellular localization but also in the number of stacks from one to several hundreds. Each stack consists of closely aligned, flattened, membrane-limited cisternae. The number of cisternae in a Golgi stack is also variable, 2-3 in some ciliates, 10 in many plant cell types and up to 30 in certain euglenoids. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a Golgi structure of minimal complexity with scattered solitary cisternae. It is assumed that the number of Golgi cisternae reflects the overall complexity of the enzymatic reactions that occur in their lumen, while the number of stacks reflects the load of macromolecules arriving at the cis side. In this review, we will focus on how the available morphological and biochemical data fit with the current view of protein sorting in the secretory pathway, particularly in polarized cells like neuronal and epithelial cells.

The monoclonal antibody (MAb) 3F4 has for nearly two decades been one of the most commonly used tools in prion research. This MAb has contributed significantly to our understanding of the normal cell biology of the prion protein (PrP(C)), as well as the disease related abnormalities occurring in prion diseases. The 3F4 antibody binds strongly to human and hamster PrP, with a specific requirement of two Met residues at positions 109 and 112 in the human PrP. Other species in which PrP lack one of the Met residues, like cattle and sheep, or both, like rat and mouse, do not react with the 3F4 antibody. These and other observations have led to the commonly accepted notion that the 3F4 epitope consists of the tetra-peptide Met-Lys-His-Met. In this study, we have identified the minimal epitope for 3F4 by studying its binding to synthetic peptides and by analysis of mutated ovine PrP::GFP constructs expressed in cell culture. We have found that the 3F4 epitope consists of a hepta-peptide (Lys-Thr-Asn-Met-Lys-His-Met), which in sheep encompass residues 109-115. We found that Lys 109 is critically important for 3F4 binding, as omission, or substitution of this residue to Ala resulted in no binding. We also demonstrate that the hepta-peptide constituting the minimal 3F4 epitope, can be used as a discrete, moveable high-affinity molecular tag. Thus, the 3F4 antibody can find its use beyond prion research.

Motivation: The Gene Ontology (GO) is a widely used terminology for gene product characterization in, for example, interpretation of biology underlying microarray experiments. The current GO defines term relationships within each of the independent subontologies: molecular function, biological process and cellular component. However, it is evident that there also exist biological relationships between terms of different subontologies. Our aim was to connect the three subontologies to enable GO to cover more biological knowledge, enable a more consistent use of GO and provide new opportunities for biological reasoning., Results: We propose a new structure, the Second Gene Ontology Layer, capturing biological relations not directly reflected in the present ontology structure. Given molecular functions, these paths identify biological processes where the molecular functions are involved and cellular components where they are active. The current Second Layer contains 6271 validated paths, covering 54% of the molecular functions of GO and can be used to render existing gene annotation sets more complete and consistent. Applying Second Layer paths to a set of 4223 human genes, increased biological process annotations by 24% compared to publicly available annotations and reproduced 30% of them., Availability: The Second GO is publicly available through the GO Annotation Toolbox (GOAT.no): http://www.goat.no.

Serglycin with a green fluorescent protein tag (SG-GFP) expressed in epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney cells is secreted mainly (85%) into the apical medium, but the glycosaminoglycan (GAG) chains on the SG-GFP protein core secreted basolaterally (15%) carry most of the sulfate added during biosynthesis (Tveit et al. (2005) J. Biol. Chem., 280, 29596-29603). Here we report further differences in apical and basolateral GAG synthesis. The less intensely sulfated chondroitin sulfate (CS) chains on apically secreted SG-GFP are longer than CS chains attached to basolateral SG-GFP, whereas the heparan sulfate (HS) chains are of similar lengths. When the supply of 3'-phosphoadenosine-5'-phosphosulfate (PAPS) is limited by chlorate treatment, the synthesis machinery maintains sulfation of HS chains on basolateral SG-GFP until it is inhibited at 50 mM chlorate, whereas basolateral CS chains lose sulfate already at 12.5 mM chlorate and become longer. Apically, incorporation of 35S-sulfate into CS is reduced to a lesser extent at higher chlorate concentrations than basolateral CS, although apical CS is less intensely sulfated than basolateral CS in control cells. Similar to what was found for basolateral HS, sulfation of apical HS was not reduced at chlorate concentrations below 50 mM. Also, protein-free, xyloside-based GAG chains secreted basolaterally are more intensely sulfated than their apical counterpart, supporting the view that separate apical and basolateral pathways exist for GAG synthesis and sulfation. Introduction of benzyl beta-d-xyloside (BX) to the GAG synthesis machinery reduces the apical secretion of SG-GFP dramatically and also the modification of SG-GFP by HS.

The cellular compartment and purpose of the proteolytic processing of the prion protein (PrP) are still under debate. We have studied ovine PrP constructs expressed in four cell lines; murine neuroblastoma cells (N2a), human neuroblastoma cells (SH-SY5Y), dog kidney epithelial cells (MDCK), and human furin-deficient colon cancer cells (LoVo). Cleavage of PrP in LoVo cells indicates that the processing is furin independent. Neither is it reduced by some inhibitors of lysosomal proteinases, proteasomes or zinc-metalloproteinases, but incubation with bafilomycin A1, an inhibitor of vacuolar H+/ATPases, increases the amount of uncleaved PrP in the apical medium of MDCK cells. Mutations affecting the putative cleavage site near amino acid 113 reveal that the cleavage is independent of primary structure at this site. Absence of glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchor and glycan modifications does not influence the proteolytic processing of PrP. Our data indicate that PrP is cleaved during transit to the cell membrane.

We have grown polarized epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney II (MDCK II) cells on filters in the presence of [(35)S]sulfate, [(3)H]glucosamine, or [(35)S]cysteine/[(35)S]methionine to study proteoglycan (PG) synthesis, sorting, and secretion to the apical and basolateral media. Whereas most of the [(35)S]sulfate label was recovered in basolateral PGs, the [(3)H]glucosamine label was predominantly incorporated into the glycosaminoglycan chains of apical PGs, indicating that basolateral PGs are more intensely sulfated than their apical counterparts. Expression of the PG serglycin with a green fluorescent protein tag (SG-GFP) in MDCK II cells produced a protein core secreted 85% apically, which was largely modified by chondroitin sulfate chains. Surprisingly, the 15% of secreted SG-GFP molecules recovered basolaterally were more heavily sulfated and displayed a different sulfation pattern than the apical counterpart. More detailed studies of the differential modification of apically and basolaterally secreted SG-GFP indicate that the protein cores have been designated to apical and basolateral transport platforms before pathway-specific, post-translational modifications have been completed.