Proteolysis of arterial basement membrane containing different amounts of carbohydrates

The arterial basement-membrane-like material was isolated from cultures of rabbit aortic myomedial cells by a sonication/differential-centrifugation technique. Using exoglycosidases the enzymic removal of fucose, glucose, mannose, N-acetylglucosamine and sialic acid resulted in a statistically significant increased susceptibility against the tryptic degradation (2 P less than 0.02), whereas the removal of galactose did not have any effect on the degradation of the basement-membrane-like material. Application of endo-beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase H caused a statistically significant increased sensitivity against trypsin digestion (2 P less than 0.02), whereas the proteolytic degradation of the basement-membrane-like material was unchanged when endo-beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase D was applied.