Structural studies on heparan sulphate from human lung fibroblasts

1. 3Hand 35S-labelled heparan sulphate was isolated from monolayers of human lung fibroblasts and subjected to degradations by (a) deaminative cleavage and (b) periodate oxidation/alkaline elimination. Fragments were resolved by geland ion-exchangechromatography. 2. Deaminative cleavage of the radioactive glycan afforded mainly disaccharides with a low content of ester-sulphate and free sulphate, indicating that a large part (approx. 80%) of the repeating units consisted of uronosyl-glucosamine-N-sulphate. Blocks of non-sulphated [glucuronosyl-N-acetyl glucosaminel repeats (3-4 consecutive units) accounted for the remainder of the chains. 3. By selective oxidation of glucuronic acid residues associated with N-acetylglucosamine, followed by scission in alkali, the radioactive glycan was degraded into a series of fragments. The glucuronosyl-N-acetylglucosamine-containing block regions yielded a compound N-acetylglucosamine-R, where R is the remnant of an oxidized and degraded glucuronic acid. Periodate-insensitive uronic acid residues were recovered in saccharides of the general structure glucosamine-(uronic acid-glucosamine) i-R. 4. Further degradations of these saccharides via deaminative cleavage and re-oxidations with periodate revealed that iduronic acid may be located in sequences such as glucosamine-N-sulphate-iduronic acid --N-acetylglucosamine. Occasionally the iduronic acid was sulphated. Blocks of iduronic acid-containing repeats may contain up to five consecutive units. Alternating arrangements of iduronic acidand glucuronic acid-containing repeats were also observed. 5. 3Hand "S-labelled heparan sulphates from sequential extracts of fibroblasts (medium, EDTA, trypsin digest, dithiothreitol extract, cell-soluble and cell-insoluble material) afforded similar profiles after both periodate oxidation/alkaline elimination and deaminative cleavage.