Identification from cDNA of the precursor form of a chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan core protein

The yolk sac carcinoma cell line L2 secretes a chondroitin/dermatan sulfate proteoglycan that has an Mr 10,000 core protein and carries an average of 14 glycosaminoglycan chains. The amino acid sequence of the mature core protein has been determined from cloned cDNA (Bourdon, M. A., Oldberg, A., Pierschbacher, M., and Ruoslahti, E. (1985) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 82, 1321-1325). From additional cDNA sequences described in this report we have identified the prepro core protein precursor of the yolk sac carcinoma chondroitin/dermatan sulfate proteoglycan. From the amino acid sequence of the core protein precursor can be deduced the protein processing events in the biosynthesis of the proteoglycan. The amino acid sequence shows that the 104-amino acid mature core protein is processed from a 179-amino acid prepro core protein precursor which, in addition to the mature core protein, contains a 26-amino acid signal peptide as well as a 49-amino acid propeptide. The molecular weight of the prepro core protein predicted from the cDNA sequence (Mr = 18,600) was in good agreement with the molecular weight of the in vitro translation product (Mr = 19,000) of hybrid-selected mRNA. Accordingly, we have designated the proteoglycan core protein PG19. Further analysis of the PG19 mRNA by RNA sequencing confirmed the identification of the core protein translation initiation codon by revealing stop codons in all three reading frames of the upstream mRNA sequence. Primer extension analyses demonstrated that the 5' untranslated sequence of the proteoglycan mRNA is approximately 220 nucleotides in length, which, combined with the length of cDNA clones, accounts for the entire length of the coding sequence of PG19 mRNA from L2 cells. The cDNA sequences presented here establish the complete protein sequence of PG19 and provide evidence of polypeptide processing during the biosynthesis of the proteoglycan core protein.