Abnormal occurrence of a large chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan, PG-M/versican in osteoarthritic cartilage.
The expression of PG-M in osteoarthritic cartilage was investigated. Cartilage from five hip joints with osteoarthritis (OA) and control cartilage from five knee joints with post-traumatic injury were obtained and analyzed with anti-PG-M antibodies. Control cartilage showed no staining, but in osteoarthritic cartilage there was strong staining of the cytoplasm of chondrocytes with abnormal morphology. The cytoplasm of inflammatory cells invading the osteoarthritic cartilage matrix was also strongly stained which led to determining the sequence of PG-M core protein. The deduced amino acid sequence and homology analysis indicated that PG-M had a complement regulatory protein-like domain, a lectin-like domain, two EGF-like domains from the carboxyl-terminal with an extremely high homology to the respective domains of versican, a large proteoglycan expressed by human fibroblasts. The anti-PG-M antibodies cross-reacted with Ver-27b fusion protein which was expressed by a cDNA clone coding the N-terminal portion of versican core protein. Thus, the immunological and sequencing data suggest that PG-M is a molecule similar to or identical with human versican, and that the material in cartilage reactive to the anti-PG-M antibodies is versican. These findings suggest the PG-M/versican is expressed in osteoarthritic cartilage.
Nishida
Y
Y
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Nagoya University School of Medicine, Showa, Nagoya 466, Japan.
Shinomura
T
T
Iwata
H
H
Miura
T
T
Kimata
K
K
D001483:Base Sequence; D002356:Cartilage / Q000378:metabolism*; D011508:Chondroitin Sulfate Proteoglycans / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D037181:Lectins, C-Type; D015207:Osteoarthritis, Hip / Q000378:metabolism*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D053675:Versicans
D011508:Chondroitin Sulfate Proteoglycans; D037181:Lectins, C-Type; C508322:VCAN protein, human; D053675:Versicans