Mammalian protein secretion without signal peptide removal. Biosynthesis of plasminogen activator inhibitor-2 in U-937 cells.

Plasminogen activator inhibitor-2 (PAI-2) is a serine protease inhibitor that regulates plasmin generation by inhibiting urokinase and tissue plasminogen activator. The primary structure of PAI-2 suggests that it may be secreted without cleavage of a single peptide. To confirm this hypothesis we have studied the glycosylation and secretion of PAI-2 in human monocytic U-937 cells by metabolic labeling, immunoprecipitation, glycosidase digestion, and protein sequencing. PAI-2 is variably glycosylated on asparagine residues to yield intracellular intermediates with zero, one, two, or three high mannose-type oligosaccharide units. Secretion of the N-glycosylated species began by 1 h of chase and the secreted molecules contained both complex-type N-linked and O-linked oligosaccharides. Enzymatically deglycosylated PAI-2 had an electrophoretic mobility identical to that of the nonglycosylated precursor and also to that of PAI-2 synthesized in vitro in a rabbit reticulocyte lysate from synthetic mRNA derived from full length PAI-2 cDNA. The amino-terminal protein sequence of secreted PAI-2 began with the initiator methionine residue. These results indicate that PAI-2 is glycosylated and secreted efficiently without the cleavage of a signal peptide. PAI-2 shares this property with its nearest homologue in the serine protease inhibitor family, chicken ovalbumin, and appears to be the first well characterized example of this phenomenon among natural mammalian proteins.