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Contaminants in commercial preparations of ‘purified’ small leucine-rich proteoglycans may distort mechanistic studies
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dc.contributor.author | Brown, Sharon J. | |
dc.contributor.author | Fuller, Heidi R. | |
dc.contributor.author | Jones, Philip | |
dc.contributor.author | Caterson, Bruce | |
dc.contributor.author | Shirran, Sally L. | |
dc.contributor.author | Botting, Catherine H. | |
dc.contributor.author | Roberts, Sally | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2017-01-16T13:30:12Z | |
dc.date.available | 2017-01-16T13:30:12Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2017-02 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Brown , S J , Fuller , H R , Jones , P , Caterson , B , Shirran , S L , Botting , C H & Roberts , S 2017 , ' Contaminants in commercial preparations of ‘purified’ small leucine-rich proteoglycans may distort mechanistic studies ' , Bioscience Reports , vol. 37 , no. 1 . https://doi.org/10.1042/BSR20160465 | en |
dc.identifier.issn | 0144-8463 | |
dc.identifier.other | PURE: 248865743 | |
dc.identifier.other | PURE UUID: 0915a54c-1b42-4918-b9b0-6df32afe7fa1 | |
dc.identifier.other | Scopus: 85011571452 | |
dc.identifier.other | ORCID: /0000-0003-3516-3507/work/32169102 | |
dc.identifier.other | WOS: 000395096100017 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10023/10110 | |
dc.description | The authors are grateful to Genodisc (EC’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7, 2007-2013) under grant agreement no. HEALTH-F2-2008-201626) and the Orthopaedic Institute Ltd for funding. | en |
dc.description.abstract | This paper reports the perplexing results that came about because of seriously impure commercially available reagents. Commercial reagents and chemicals are routinely ordered by scientists and are expected to have been rigorously assessed for their purity. Unfortunately, we found this assumption to be risky. Extensive work was carried out within our laboratory using commercially-sourced preparations of the small leucine-rich proteoglycans, decorin and biglycan, to investigate their influence on nerve cell growth. Unusual results compelled us to analyse the composition and purity of both preparations of these proteoglycans using both mass spectrometry and Western blotting, with and without various enzymatic deglycosylations. Commercial ‘decorin’ and ‘biglycan’ were found to contain a mixture of proteoglycans including not only both decorin and biglycan but also fibromodulin and aggrecan. The unexpected effects of ‘decorin’ and ‘biglycan’ on nerve cell growth could be explained by these impurities. Decorin and biglycan contain either chondroitin or dermatan sulphate glycosaminoglycan chains whilst fibromodulin only contains keratan sulphate and the large (>2,500 kDa), highly glycosylated aggrecan, contains both keratan and chondroitin sulphate. The different structure, molecular weights and composition of these impurities significantly affected our work and any conclusions that could be made. These findings beg the question as to whether scientists need to verify the purity of each commercially obtained reagent used in their experiments. The implications of these findings are vast, since the effects of these impurities may already have led to inaccurate conclusions and reports in the literature with concomitant loss of researchers’ funds and time. | |
dc.format.extent | 14 | |
dc.language.iso | eng | |
dc.relation.ispartof | Bioscience Reports | en |
dc.rights | © 2017 The Authors. This is an open access article published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). | en |
dc.subject | Commercial preparations | en |
dc.subject | Small leucine-rich proteoglycans (SLRPs) | en |
dc.subject | Decorin | en |
dc.subject | Biglycan | en |
dc.subject | Mass spectrometry | en |
dc.subject | Glycosaminoglycan | en |
dc.subject | QD Chemistry | en |
dc.subject | DAS | en |
dc.subject.lcc | QD | en |
dc.title | Contaminants in commercial preparations of ‘purified’ small leucine-rich proteoglycans may distort mechanistic studies | en |
dc.type | Journal article | en |
dc.description.version | Publisher PDF | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. School of Biology | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. Biomedical Sciences Research Complex | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. School of Chemistry | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. EaSTCHEM | en |
dc.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.1042/BSR20160465 | |
dc.description.status | Peer reviewed | en |
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