Dermatan sulfate epimerase 2 is the predominant isozyme in the formation of the chondroitin sulfate/dermatan sulfate hybrid structure in postnatal developing mouse brain.

Chondroitin sulfate (CS) and dermatan sulfate (DS) are expressed in significant amounts in the brain and play important roles in the development of the central nervous system in mammals. CS and DS structures are often found in a single CS/DS hybrid chain. The l-iduronic acid (IdoA)-containing domain, which defines a DS-type domain, appears key to the biological functions of the CS/DS hybrid chain. In this study, to clarify the distribution of the DS-type structure in the brain during development, the expression patterns of DS epimerase 1 (DS-epi1) and DS-epi2, both of which convert d-glucuronic acid into IdoA, were investigated by in situ hybridization. DS-epi2 was ubiquitously expressed in the developing brain after birth, whereas the expression of DS-epi1 was faint and obscure at all developmental stages. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed the expression of DS-epi2 to be higher than that of DS-epi1 throughout development, suggesting that DS-epi2 but not DS-epi1 is mostly expressed in the brain and plays key roles in the epimerization of CS/DS during its biosynthesis. Moreover, an analysis of the disaccharides of CS/DS demonstrated significant amounts of IdoA-containing iD units [IdoA(2S)-GalNAc(6S)] and iB units [IdoA(2S)-GalNAc(4S)], where 2S, 4S and 6S stand for 2-O-, 4-O- and 6-O-sulfate, respectively, in every region of the brain examined. The proportion of these units in cerebellar CS/DS was greatly altered during postnatal development. These results suggest that the IdoA-containing structures in the developing brain are mainly produced by the actions of DS-epi2 and play crucial roles in postnatal development.