Synthesis of the major oligosaccharide components of murine haemangioendothelioma cells.

Murine haemangioendothelioma cells in culture synthesize lactosaminoglycan-type glycoproteins which are found both associated with cells and secreted into the culture medium. Pronase-derived glycopeptides, prepared from the [3H]glucosamine-labeled glycoproteins that were secreted into the culture medium were found to contain about 10% of the labeled products as large size (Mr greater than 5000) 3H-labeled glycopeptides. In contrast, 40% of the cellular 3H-glycopeptides were found to be of this large size class of glycopeptides. These large size glycopeptides did not bind to Con A-Sepharose but did bind to Datura stramonium-agarose, from which they were eluted with chitobiose. The glycopeptides which did not bind to Datura-lectin were sulfated complex-type oligosaccharides which were not degraded by endo-beta-galactosidase. The glycopeptides which bound to Datura-lectin were degraded by endo-beta-galactosidase (or keratanase) to yield Gal----GlcNAc----Gal and glycopeptides, which were resistant to further endo-beta-galactosidase digestion and which no longer bound to Datura lectin-agarose. A major [3H]glucosamine-labelled glycoprotein (Mr approx. 75000) was found to be susceptible to endo-beta-galactosidase degradation and is probably the major cellular constituent having lactosaminoglycan-type side chains in these cells. An in vitro assay to measure leucocyte-haemangioendothelioma interactions indicated that treatment of haemangioendothelioma cells with endo-beta-galactosidase reduced leucocyte binding to these cells by 80%.