1. Analysis of the purified proteoglycans extracted from normal human articular cartilage with 4M-guanidinium chloride showed that there was an age-related increase in their content of protein and keratan sulphate. 2. The hydrodynamic size of the dissociated proteoglycans also decreased with advancing age, but there was little change in the proportion that could aggregate. 3. Results suggested ...

In a recent publication in Bioscience Reports "Contaminants in commercial preparations of 'purified' small leucine-rich proteoglycans may distort mechanistic studies", Brown et al. identified by mass spectrometry and immunoblotting that certain commercial preparations of the small leucine-rich proteoglycans (SLRPs) decorin and biglycan, in fact, contained a mix of several proteoglycans that als...

Proteoglycans are abundant components of the cell surface and extracellular matrix that mediate critical interactions between cells and their environment. They play a variety of biological roles in normal tissues and in response to injury and disease. Proteoglycans regulate the distribution of extracellular signaling molecules such as morphogens and chemokines, and modulate signaling events at ...

A detailed study of the biochemistry of each of the lower lumbar intervertebral discs from 3 spines aged 8, 16, and 44 years has shown progressive changes down the spine in a number of biochemical parameters. These were most apparent in the 44-year-old spine. The chemical composition of proteoglycans of the nucleus pulposus and of its constituent proteoglycans differed from those of the corresp...

Proteoglycans are probably the most important nonfibrillar constituents of connective tissue although little is known about the proteoglycans of connective tissue other than cartilage. Hence this paper is mainly concerned with cartilage proteoglycans. Proteoglycans are found throughout connective tissue, but those of cartilage have certain features that distinguish them from proteoglycans of ot...

Proteoglycans are widely expressed in animal cells. Interactions between negatively charged glycosaminoglycan chains and molecules such as growth factors are essential for differentiation of cells during development and maintenance of tissue organisation. We propose that glycosaminoglycan chains play a role in targeting of proteoglycans to their proper cellular or extracellular location. The va...

A major feature of chronic tendinopathy is a change in the nature and organisation of the extracellular matrix of tendon. Increased levels of proteoglycans have been shown in the extracellular matrix of tendinopathic tendons and these appear to influence the increased hydration and swelling of the tissue that is a feature of this condition. There is a paucity of knowledge about proteoglycans in...

Cancer development is a multifactorial procedure that involves changes in the cell microenvironment and specific modulations functions. A tumor contains cells, non-malignant blood vessels, cells of immune system, stromal extracellular matrix (ECM). The small leucine-rich proteoglycans (SLRPs) are family nineteen proteoglycans, which ubiquitously expressed among mammalian tissues especially abun...

Cartilage glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) were measured by a spectrophotometric assay in synovial fluid obtained from 30 normal bovine hock joints and 15 osteoarthritic human knee joints. Results were compared with those obtained by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The spectrophotometric method (dimethylmethylene blue (DMB) assay) was found to be simple, safe, and sufficiently reproducible to be of potential ...

Sugar moieties have been shown to contain sufficient and necessary information to target examples of secreted and transmembrane glycoproteins to the apical surface of epithelial MDCK cells. We have investigated if the sugar chains of proteoglycans, the glycosaminoglycans, also contain structural determinants for apical transport. Here we show that although 75% of the proteoglycan secretion from...