Insights into structure, affinity, specificity, and function of GAG-protein interactions through the chemoenzymatic preparation of defined sulfated oligohyaluronans.

High amounts of glycosaminoglycans (GAG) such as hyaluronan (HA) occur in connective tissues. There is nowadays increasing evidence that a "sulfation code" exists which mediates numerous GAG functions. High molecular weight and inhomogeneity of GAG, however, aggravated detailed studies. Thus, synthetic oligosaccharides were urgently required. We will review here chemoenzymatic and analytic strategies to provide defined sulfated and anomerically modified GAG oligosaccharides of the HA type. Representative studies of protein/GAG interactions by (bio)chemical and biophysical methods are reported yielding novel insights into GAG-protein binding. Finally, the biological conclusions and in vivo applications of defined sulfated GAG oligosaccharides will be discussed.

N-terminal lipid conjugation of amyloid ß(1-40) leads to the formation of highly ordered N-terminally extended fibrils.

Fibril formation of amyloid ß(1-40) (Aß(1-40)) peptides N-terminally lipid modified with saturated octanoyl or palmitoyl lipid chains was investigated. Lipid modification of Aß(1-40) significantly accelerates the fibrillation kinetics of the Aß peptides as revealed by ThT fluorescence. Electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction results indicate a heterogeneous cross-ß structure of the fibrils formed by the lipid-conjugated peptides. Solid-state NMR was used to investigate structural features of these fibrils. The lipid moieties form dynamic and loosely structured heterogeneous lipid assemblies as inferred from 2H NMR of the deuterated lipid chains. 13C NMR studies of selected isotopic labels reveals that in addition to Phe19 and Val39, which are part of the canonical cross-ß structure, also N-terminal residues (Ala2, Phe4, Val12) are found in ß-strand conformation. This suggests that the increased hydrophobicity induced by the lipid modification, alters the energy landscape rendering an N-terminal extension of the ß-sheet structure favorable. Furthermore, the fibrils formed by the Aß-lipid hybrids are much more rigid than wildtype Aß fibrils as inferred from NMR order parameter measurements. Taken together, increasing the local hydrophobicity of the Aß N-terminus results in highly ordered but heterogeneous amyloid fibrils with extended N-terminal ß-sheet structure.

Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Nonasulfated Tetrahyaluronan with a Paramagnetic Tag for Studying Its Complex with Interleukin-10.

Implants and artificial biomaterials containing sulfated hyaluronans have been shown to improve the healing of injured skin and bones. It is hypothesized that these effects are mediated by the binding of sulfated glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) to growth factors and cytokines, resulting in the sequestering of proteins to the wound healing site and in modulated protein activity. Given that no direct synthetic access to sulfated oligohyaluronans has been available, little is known about their protein binding and the structure of the resulting protein complexes. Here, the chemoenzymatic preparation of oligohyaluronans on the gram scale is described. Oligohyaluronans are converted into anomeric azides at the reducing end, enabling the attachment of analytical labels through an anomeric ligation reaction. A nonasulfated tetrahyaluronan-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid derivative has been produced and used as a paramagnetic tag for the elucidation of the complex of this ligand with interleukin-10 using paramagnetic relaxation enhancement NMR analysis. The metal ion position is resolved with 1.0 Å, enabling a refined structural model of the complex.

Structural analysis of the interleukin-8/glycosaminoglycan interactions by amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry.

The recruitment of different chemokines and growth factors by glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) such as chondroitin sulfate or hyaluronan plays a critical role in wound healing processes. Thus, there is a special interest in the design of artificial extracellular matrices with improved properties concerning GAG interaction with common regulating proteins. In this study, amide hydrogen/deuterium (H/D) exchange mass spectrometry (HDX MS) combined with molecular modeling and docking experiments was used to obtain structural models of proinflammatory chemokine interleukin-8 (IL-8) in complex with hexameric chondroitin sulfate. Experiments on the intact protein showed a difference in deuterium labeling of IL-8 due to chondroitin sulfate binding. The extent of deuteration was reduced from 24% to 13% after 2 min exchange time, which corresponds to a reduced exchange of approximately 10 backbone amides. By local HDX MS experiments, H/D exchange information on the complete sequence of IL-8 could be obtained. A significantly reduced H/D exchange, especially of the C-terminal α-helical region comprising amino acids 70-77 and to the loop comprising amino acids 27-29 was observed in the presence of chondroitin sulfate. HDX MS data were used to model the IL-8/chondroitin sulfate complex. The binding interface of IL-8 and chondroitin sulfate determined this way correlated excellently with the corresponding NMR based atomistic model previously published. Our results demonstrate that HDX-MS in combination with molecular modeling is a valuable approach for the analysis of protein/GAG complexes at physiological pH, temperature, and salt concentration. The fact that HDX-MS requires only micrograms of protein and GAGs makes it a very promising technique to address protein-GAG interactions.

Regioselective Ring-Opening Polymerization of a Polyhydroxycarboxylic Acid for the Synthesis of a Nanoscale Carrier Material with pH-Dependent Stability and Sustained Drug Release.

Synthetic polyesters are usually composed of monohydroxycarboxylic acids to avoid the problem of regioselectivity during ring-opening polymerization. In contrast, the linear polyester BICpoly contains four secondary OH groups and is nevertheless esterified regioselectively at only one of these positions. Neither the synthesis of the tricyclic monomers nor the ring-opening polymerization requires protecting groups, making BICpoly an attractive novel and biocompatible polymer. BICpoly nanoparticles can be loaded with low-molecular weight drugs or coated onto surfaces as thin films. The release of loaded compounds makes BICpoly an attractive depot for drug release, as shown herein by loading BICpoly with dyes or the cytostatic drug doxorubicin. BICpoly is distinguishable from other polymers by its characteristic pH-dependent degradation.

A new update of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in lipid research.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS) is an indispensable tool in modern lipid research since it is fast, sensitive, tolerates sample impurities and provides spectra without major analyte fragmentation. We will discuss some methodological aspects, the related ion-forming processes and the MALDI MS characteristics of the different lipid classes (with the focus on glycerophospholipids) and the progress, which was achieved during the last ten years. Particular attention will be given to quantitative aspects of MALDI MS since this is widely considered as the most serious drawback of the method. Although the detailed role of the matrix is not yet completely understood, it will be explicitly shown that the careful choice of the matrix is crucial (besides the careful evaluation of the positive and negative ion mass spectra) in order to be able to detect all lipid classes of interest. Two developments will be highlighted: spatially resolved Imaging MS is nowadays well established and the distribution of lipids in tissues merits increasing interest because lipids are readily detectable and represent ubiquitous compounds. It will also be shown that a combination of MALDI MS with thin-layer chromatography (TLC) enables a fast spatially resolved screening of an entire TLC plate which makes the method competitive with LC/MS.

Characterization of defined sulfated heparin-like oligosaccharides by electrospray ionization ion trap mass spectrometry.

Glycosaminoglycans (GAG) as long, unbranched polysaccharides are major components of the extracellular matrix. Many studies provided additional evidence of a specific binding between mediators and sulfated GAG, at which the sulfation code-which means the number and positions of sulfate groups along the polysaccharide chain-plays an important role. GAG from natural sources are very inhomogeneous regarding their sulfation patterns and molecular weight. Additionally, there is a high risk of contamination. This results in a growing interest in the careful characterization of native GAG and the synthesis of artificial GAG. Additionally, chemically oversulfated GAG analogues show many favorable properties. However, the structural characterization of these carbohydrates by mass spectrometry remains challenging. One significant problem is the sulfate loss during the ionization, which increases with the number of sulfate residues. We used the sulfated pentasaccharide fondaparinux as model substance to optimize sample preparation and measurement conditions, compared different established desalination methods and already existing protocols for sulfated oligosaccharides, and investigated their impact on the quality of the mass spectra. After optimization of the measurement conditions, we could establish a gentle and fast protocol for the mass spectrometry characterization of (fully) sulfated, artificial GAG-like oligosaccharides with minimized sulfate loss in the positive and negative ion mode. Here, the negative ion mode was more sensitive in comparison with the positive one, and fondaparinux species with sulfate loss were not detectable under the optimized conditions in the positive ion mode.

Syntheses of defined sulfated oligohyaluronans reveal structural effects, diversity and thermodynamics of GAG-protein binding.

Binding of sulfated glycosaminoglycans (GAG) to a wide spectrum of extracellular regulatory proteins is crucial for physiological processes such as cell growth, migration, tissue homeostasis and repair. Thus, GAG derivatives exhibit great relevance in the development of innovative biomaterials for tissue regeneration therapies. We present a synthetic strategy for the preparation of libraries of defined sulfated oligohyaluronans as model GAG systematically varied in length, sulfation pattern and anomeric substitution in order to elucidate the effects of these parameters on GAG recognition by regulatory proteins. Through an experimental and computational approach using fluorescence polarization, ITC, docking and molecular dynamics simulations we investigate the binding of these functionalized GAG derivatives to ten representative regulatory proteins including IL-8, IL-10, BMP-2, sclerostin, TIMP-3, CXCL-12, TGF-ß, FGF-1, FGF-2, and AT-III, and we establish structure-activity relationships for GAG recognition. Binding is mainly driven by enthalpy with only minor entropic contributions. In several cases binding is determined by GAG length, and in all cases by the position and number of sulfates. Affinities strongly depend on the anomeric modification of the GAG. Highest binding affinities are effected by anomeric functionalization with large fluorophores and by GAG dimerization. Our experimental and theoretical results suggest that the diversity of GAG binding sites and modes is responsible for the observed high affinities and other binding features. The presented new insights into GAG-protein recognition will be of relevance to guide the design of GAG derivatives with customized functions for the engineering of new biomaterials.

Improvement of the digestibility of sulfated hyaluronans by bovine testicular hyaluronidase: a UV spectroscopic and mass spectrometric study.

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) such as hyaluronan (HA) and chondroitin sulfate (CS) are important, natural polysaccharides which occur in biological (connective) tissues and have various biotechnological and medical applications. Additionally, there is increasing evidence that chemically (over)sulfated GAGs possess promising properties and are useful as implant coatings. Unfortunately, a detailed characterization of these GAGs is challenging: although mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the most powerful tools to elucidate the structures of (poly)saccharides, MS is not applicable to high mass polysaccharides, but characteristic oligosaccharides are needed. These oligosaccharides are normally generated by enzymatic digestion. However, chemically modified (particularly sulfated) GAGs are extremely refractive to enzymatic digestion. This study focuses on the investigation of the digestibility of GAGs with different degrees of sulfation by bovine testicular hyaluronidase (BTH). It will be shown by using an adapted spectrophotometric assay that all investigated GAGs can be basically digested if the reaction conditions are carefully adjusted. However, the oligosaccharide yield correlates reciprocally with the number of sulfate residues per polymer repeating unit. Finally, matrix-laser desorption and ionization (MALDI) MS will be used to study the released oligosaccharides and their sulfation patterns.