Recognition of lactoferrin and aminopeptidase M-modified lactoferrin by the liver: involvement of proteoglycans and the remnant receptor

1. Lactoferrin and aminopeptidase M-modified lactoferrin (APM-lactoferrin; which lacks its 14 N-terminal amino acids) inhibit the liver uptake of lipoprotein remnants. In the present study, the role of proteoglycans in the initial interaction of β-migrating very-low-density lipoprotein (β-VLDL), native and APM-lactoferrin with isolated rat parenchymal liver cells was investigated. Treatment of the cells with chondroitinase lowered the K d of lactoferrin binding (from 10 to 2.4 μM), and the number of sites/cell (from 20×10 6 to 7×10 6 ), while heparinase treatment did not affect the binding. The binding characteristics of APM-lactoferrin and β-VLDL were not altered by treatment of the cells with chondroitinase or heparinase. It is concluded that proteoglycans are not involved in the initial binding of APM-lactoferrin and β-VLDL to parenchymal cells, while chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans are mainly responsible for the massive, low-affinity binding of native lactoferrin. 2. The binding of lactoferrin, APM-lactoferrin and β-VLDL to parenchymal liver cells was not influenced by the glutathione S-transferase-receptor-associated protein (GST-RAP) (97.2±4.0%, 95.5±3.7% and 98.5% of the control binding), while the binding of α 2 -macroglobulin was fully blocked at 10 μg/ml GST-RAP (1.8±0.5% of the control binding). Since GST-RAP blocks the binding of all the known ligands to the low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-receptor-related protein (LRP), it is concluded that LRP is not the initial primary recognition site for lactoferrin, APM-lactoferrin and β-VLDL on parenchymal liver cells. 3. We showed earlier that APM-lactoferrin, as compared with lactoferrin, is a more effective inhibitor of the liver uptake of lipoprotein remnants (49.4±4.0% versus 80.8±4.8% of the control at 500 μg/ml respectively). We found in the present study that β-VLDL is able to inhibit the binding of APM-lactoferrin to parenchymal liver cells significantly (74.9±3.3% of the control; P