Thyroid hormone excess stimulates the synthesis of proteoglycan in human skin fibroblasts in culture.

We previously demonstrated that proteoglycan accumulated in the affected skin of circumscribed pretibial myxedema of Graves' disease. As an underlying mechanism responsible for the accumulation, we sought to determine whether excess thyroid hormone was partially responsible for the increase in proteoglycan synthesis. Human skin fibroblasts were cultured in Ham's F-10 medium containing 1% Nutridoma with graded doses of T3 (0.184 x 10(-9) to 46 x 10(-9) mol/l) and were labelled with [35S]sulphate and [3H]glucosamine. Proteoglycans were purified by Sephadex G-50, Q-Sepharose chromatography with NaCl-gradient and Sepharose CL-6B chromatography. 35S and 3H incorporated into dermatan sulphate proteoglycan and heparan sulphate proteoglycan and 3H incorporated into hyaluronan were measured. 35S and 3H incorporation into dermatan sulphate proteoglycan was minimum at a T3 concentration of 0.184 x 10(-9) mol/l, and increased with increasing doses of T3 up to 46 x 10(-9) mol/l. 35S and 3H incorporation into heparan sulphate proteoglycan also increased with increasing-doses of T3. 3H incorporation into hyaluronan was not influenced at all by T3. The increased incorporation of 35S into proteoglycan in high-T3 culture reflects the increased synthesis of proteoglycan because 1. the extent of sulphation of disaccharides examined by thin-layer chromatography was not altered by T3; 2. the specific activity of [35S]sulphate was not influenced by T3, and 3. T3 did not decrease the degradation rate of cell-associated proteoglycan.