Receptors on lymphocytes for endogenous splenic glycosaminoglycans

Previous studies have shown that lymphocytes carry cell surface receptors for sulphated polysaccharides (SPS), and SPS recognition may play a role in lymphocyte migration and positioning in vivo. This paper describes attempts to isolate and characterize the endogenous glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) of murine spleen and determine whether splenic lymphocytes carry cell surface receptors for these GAGs. A procedure was devised for isolating GAGs from murine spleen in good yield and high purity and the GAG preparation was then radiolabelled for subsequent binding studies. It was found that the splenic GAGs bound to murine splenocytes in a saturable, rapid and reversible manner with only a small subpopulation of the splenic GAG preparation being involved in binding. This reactive species was chondroitinase ABC-resistant and nitrous acid-sensitive, indicative of a heparan sulphate/heparin-like molecule. Furthermore, using immunofluorescent flow cytometry studies it was demonstrated that the majority of spleen cells have receptors for these GAGs. Subsequent ion-exchange fractionation and SDS-PAGE analysis of chondroitinase ABC-resistant GAGs confirmed that the splenic GAG recognized by splenocytes was a heparan sulphate/heparin molecule of approximately 20,000 MW with a binding affinity to splenocytes of approximately 5 X 10(-8) M. Additional binding inhibition studies indicated two possible binding sites for splenic GAGs on the splenocyte surface, one being fully inhibited by a range of SPS such as heparin (both coagulant and anticoagulant forms), pentosan sulphate, fucoidan, dextran sulphate, lambda- and iota-carrageenan, and the second being partially inhibited by kappa-carrageenan. The possible relevance of these heparan sulphate/heparin receptors on splenocytes to lymphocyte positioning in vivo is discussed.