Gelatinase B is a matrix metalloproteinase (MMP-9) expressed under strict control by manycell types including neutrop
hils, monocytes, macrop
hages, and tumor cells. MMP-9 is a key mediator int
he p
hysiological maintenance of t
he extracellular matrix bot
h in tissue remodeling and development,w
hile uncontrolled enzyme activity contributes to pat
hologies suc
h as cancer and inflammation. Neutrop
hilsrelease MMP-9 from granules in response to IL-8 stimulation. Human MMP-9
has t
hree potential N-linkedglycosylation sites and contains a Ser/Pro/T
hr ric
h domain, known as t
he type V collagen-like domain,w
hic
h is expected to be
heavily O-glycosylated. Indeed, approximately 85% of t
he total sugars on
humanneutrop
hil MMP-9 are O-linked. T
his paper presents t
he detailed analysis of picomole amounts of t
heseO-glycans using a novel HPLC-based strategy for O-glycan analysis t
hat provides linkage and arm specificinformation in addition to monosacc
haride sequence. T
he initial structural assignments were confirmedusing HPLC wit
h online MS/MS fragmentation analysis. Twelve sugars were identified t
hat containedfrom two to nine monosacc
haride residues. Most of t
hese contained type 2 core structures wit
h Gal
![](/images/gifc<font color=)
hars/beta2.gif" BORDER=0 ALIGN="middle">1-4GlcNAc (
N-acetyl lactosamine) extensions, wit
h or wit
hout sialic acid or fucose. T
he O-glycans weremodeled using t
he oligosacc
haride structural database. On t
he basis of t
he structure of gelatinase A (MMP-2), a model of MMP-9 suggests t
hat t
he type V collagen-like domain in gelatinase B is located on a loopremote from t
he active site. Fourteen potential O-glycosylation sites are multiply presented on t
his loopof 52 amino acids. Many of t
he O-glycans identified contain terminal galactose residues t
hat may providerecognition epitopes. Importantly,
heavy glycosylation of t
his loop region, absent in gelatinase A,
hasconsiderable implications for t
he domain organization of MMP-9.