Circular proteoglycans from sponges: first members of the spongican family |
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Authors: | X Fernàndez-Busquets M M Burger |
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Institution: | (1) Research Center for Bioelectronics and Nanobioscience, Barcelona Science Park, University of Barcelona, Josep Samitier 1–5, E-08028 Barcelona (Spain), Fax: +34934037225, e-mail: busquets@qf.ub.es, ES;(2) Novartis International AG, CH-4002 Basel (Switzerland), CH |
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Abstract: | Species-specific cell adhesion in marine sponges is mediated by a new family of modular proteoglycans whose general supramolecular
structure resembles that of hyalectans. However, neither their protein nor their glycan moieties have significant sequence
homology to other proteoglycans, despite having protein subunits equivalent to link proteins and to proteoglycan monomer core
proteins, and glycan subunits equivalent to hyaluronan and to the glycosaminoglycans of hyalectans. In some species, these
molecular components are assembled into a structure with a circular core formed by the link protein- and hyaluronan-like subunits.
Besides their involvement in cell adhesion, these sponge proteoglycans, for which we propose the term spongicans, participate
in signal transduction processes and are suspected to play a role in sponge self-nonself recognition. Their in vivo roles
and the mild methods used to purify large amounts of functionally active spongicans make them ideal models to study the functions
and possible new applications of proteoglycans in biomedical research.
Received 21 May 2002; received after revision 5 July 2002; accepted 10 July 2002
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ID="*"Corresponding author. |
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Keywords: | , Proteoglycan, hyaluronan, cell adhesion, Porifera, invertebrate histocompatibility, glycosaminoglycan, self-nonself,,,,,recognition, atomic force microscope, |
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