Micro-scale isolation of sulfated glycopeptide from tissue was achieved by successive application of pronase digestion (Step 1), cetylpyridinium chloride-fractionation (Step 2), crude heparinase digestion or chondroitinase ABC digestion plus nitrous acid treatment (Step 3) and preparative cellulose acetate membrane-electrophoresis (Step 4). By this method, sulfated glycopeptide was obtained in ...

Thrombomodulin (TM), a membrane proteoglycan on endothelial cells, binds thrombin in a 1:1 complex, accelerates the protein C activation by thrombin, promotes the thrombin inactivation by antithrombin III and inhibits the procoagulant properties of thrombin. The inactivation of single-chain urokinase-type plasminogen activator (scu-PA) by thrombin is accelerated about 70-fold by TM [De Munk, Gr...

Background: Chondroitinase ABC (cABC), due to its loosening impact on the extracellular matrix scaffold, has been used to enhance regeneration of injured axonal tracts after spinal cord injury (SCI). However, cABC thermal instability at physiological temperature has limited its clinical application. The disaccharide trehalose has been shown to increase the stability of cABC in body temperature....

INTRODUCTION Substantial data has shown that the lectican group of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans are involved in inhibition of axonal plasticity in response to injury in the central nervous system. Increasing evidence indicates that lecticans may also play a role in synaptic plasticity related to memory, especially associated with aging. A recent study has shown that lectican expression is ...

Enzymes have evolved as catalysts with high degrees of stereospecificity. When both enantiomers are biologically important, enzymes with two different folds usually catalyze reactions with the individual enantiomers. In rare cases a single enzyme can process both enantiomers efficiently, but no molecular basis for such catalysis has been established. The family of bacterial chondroitin lyases A...

Although the peripheral nerve has the potential to regenerate after injury, degenerative processes may be essential to promote axonal growth into the denervated nerve. One hypothesis is that the nerve contains growth inhibitors that must be neutralized after injury for optimal regeneration. In the present study, we tested whether degradation of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan, a known inhibito...

Proteoglycans within the extracellular matrix of human bone marrow have been implicated in the process of hematopoiesis, but little is known about the structure and composition of these macromolecules in this tissue. Hematopoietically active human long-term bone marrow cultures were incubated with medium containing 35S-sulfate and 3H-glucosamine as labeling precursors. Proteoglycans present in ...