Characterization of human skin fibroblast extracellular proteins by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.

Human skin fibroblasts secrete over 50 proteins into the culture medium. In this paper these are characterised using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and peptide mapping of proteins metabolically labelled in the presence and absence of tunicamycin. Thirty of these proteins have been shown to be N-glycosides, 4 are O-glycosides and 10 are not glycosylated. Of the major proteins, groups 1-4 have previously been shown to be fibroblast specific. Peptide mapping and tunicamycin treatment has identified that groups 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 are closely related and that groups 1 and 3 arise by N-glycosylation of 2 and 4, respectively. The unglycosylated precursor forms of several other proteins have also been identified. This approach to the analysis of protein secretion provides an abundance of information on many proteins simultaneously and can be used to assess the changes in protein secretion associated with development, and to identify extracellular growth factors and other regulatory proteins.