Yeon-Dae Kwon

Chondroitin Sulfate Synthase-3 MOLECULAR CLONING AND CHARACTERIZATION

Recently, it has become evident that chondroitin sulfate (CS) glycosyltransferases, which transfer glucuronic acid and/or N-acetylgalactosamine residues from each UDP-sugar to the nonreducing terminus of the CS chain, form a gene family. We report here a novel human gene (GenBank™ accession number AB086062) that possesses a sequence homologous with the human chondroitin sulfate synthase-1 (CSS1) gene, formerly known as chondroitin synthase. The full-length open reading frame consists of 882 amino acids and encodes a typical type II membrane protein. This enzyme contains a β3-glycosyltransferase motif and a β4-glycosyltransferase motif similar to that found in CSS1. Both the enzymes were expressed in COS-7 cells as soluble proteins, and their enzymatic natures were characterized. Both glucuronyltransferase and N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase activities were observed when chondroitin, CS polymer, and their corresponding oligosaccharides were used as the acceptor substrates, but no polymerization reaction was observed as in the case of CSS1. The new enzyme was thus designated chondroitin sulfate synthase-3 (CSS3). However, the specific activity of CSS3 was much lower than that of CSS1. The reaction products were shown to have a GlcUAβ1–3GalNAc linkage and a GalNAcβ1–4GlcUA linkage in the nonreducing terminus of chondroitin resulting from glucuronyltransferase activity and N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase activity, respectively. Quantitative real time PCR analysis revealed that the transcript level of CSS3 was much lower than that of CSS1, although it was ubiquitously expressed in various human tissues. These results indicate that CSS3 is a glycosyltransferase having both glucuronyltransferase and N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase activities. It may make a contribution to CS biosynthesis that differs from that of CSS1.

Molecular cloning and characterization of β1,4‐N‐acetylgalactosaminyltransferases IV synthesizing N,N′‐diacetyllactosediamine1

A sequence highly homologous to β1,4‐N‐acetylgalactosaminyltransferase III (β4GalNAc‐T3) was found in a database of human expressed sequence tags. The full‐length open reading frame of the gene, β4GalNAc‐T4 (GenBank accession number AB089939), was cloned using the 5′ rapid amplification of cDNA ends method. It encodes a typical type II transmembrane protein of 1039 amino acids having 42.6% identity with β4GalNAc‐T3. The recombinant enzyme transferred N‐acetylgalactosamine to N‐acetylglucosamine‐β‐benzyl with a β1,4‐linkage to form N,N′‐diacetyllactosediamine as did β4GalNAc‐T3. In specificity toward oligosaccharide acceptor substrates, it was quite similar to β4GalNAc‐T3 in vitro, however, the tissue distributions of the two enzymes were quite different. These results indicated that the two enzymes have similar roles in different tissues.

Comparison of glycosyltransferase families using the profile hidden Markov model.

In order to investigate the relationship between glycosyltransferase families and the motif for them, we classified 47 glycosyltransferase families in the CAZy database into four superfamilies, GTS-A, -B, -C, and -D, using a profile Hidden Markov Model method. On the basis of the classification and the similarity between GTS-A and nucleotidylyltransferase family catalyzing the synthesis of nucleotide-sugar, we proposed that ancient oligosaccharide might have been synthesized by the origin of GTS-B whereas the origin of GTS-A might be the gene encoding for synthesis of nucleotide-sugar as the donor and have evolved to glycosyltransferases to catalyze the synthesis of divergent carbohydrates. We also suggested that the divergent evolution of each superfamily in the corresponding subcellular component has increased the complexities of eukaryotic carbohydrate structure.

Identification of a novel human UDP-GalNAc transferase with unique catalytic activity and expression profile.

A novel member of the human ppGalNAc-T family, ppGalNAc-T20, was identified and characterized. Amino acid alignment revealed a high sequence identity between ppGalNAc-T20 and -T10. In the GalNAc transfer assay towards mucin-derived peptide substrates, the recombinant ppGalNAc-T20 demonstrated to be a typical glycopeptide GalNAc-transferase that exhibits activity towards mono-GalNAc-glycosylated peptide EA2 derived from rat submandibular gland mucin but no activity towards non-modified EA2. The in vitro catalytic property of ppGalNAc-T20 was compared with that of ppGalNAc-T10 to show different acceptor substrate specificities and kinetic constants. The ppGalNAc-T20 transcript was found exclusively in testis and brain. In situ hybridization further reveals that ppGalNAc-T20 was specifically localized in primary and secondary spermatocytes of the two meiotic periods, suggesting that it may involve in O-glycosylation during mouse spermatogenesis.