A Structural Glycoprotein of Elastic Tissue: Its Synthesis by Cultured Fibroblasts

Publisher Summary The extracellular matrix of elastic tissues contains three morphologically distinct structural components—collagen fibers and elastin-associated micro fibrils. The biosynthesis and extracellular processing of collagen and elastin are well documented, but very little is known about the molecular nature and organization of the micro fibrils except that they are only extractable under denaturing conditions and probably contain glycosylated polypeptides. This dearth of information is largely because of the difficulty in obtaining microfibrils in an undegraded form and the lack of a specific and quantitative assay. This chapter discusses an alternative approach to study these structural components by a biochemical and immunological examination of the extracellular glycoprotein synthesized by cultured fibroblasts derived from elastic tissues.