Control of asparagine-linked oligosaccharide chain processing: studies on bovine pancreatic ribonuclease B. An in vitro system for the processing of exogenous glycoproteins.

To gain an understanding of why the polymannose-type oligosaccharide chain of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease B is not processed to a complex-type chain in vivo, the processing of this glycoprotein was studied in two cell-free systems. Addition of native 125I-ribonuclease B to rat liver Golgi membranes in the presence of UDP-GlcNAc resulted in the conversion of the high mannose chain to a complex type as evidenced by the acquisition of resistance to digestion with endoglucosaminidase H. Processing was linearly dependent on time and on the amount of Golgi membranes. Omission of UDP-GlcNAc from the reaction mixtures completely abolished processing of the glycoprotein. Product identification studies confirmed that the formation of ribonuclease that was resistant to digestion with endoglucosaminidase H was accompanied by the appearance of a complex-type oligosaccharide that contained one or more terminal beta-GlcNAc residues. In vitro processing of 125I-ribonuclease B that had been denatured by reduction and alkylation revealed that the rate of complex chain formation was only slightly greater than that observed with the native enzyme. In contrast to the results obtained with the heterologous rat liver system, Golgi membranes from bovine pancreas failed to process native ribonuclease B to the complex form. However, bovine pancreas Golgi membranes did readily process the denatured form of the enzyme. The presence of a factor in bovine pancreas that binds only to native ribonuclease B and thereby prevents its oligosaccharide chain from being processed was considered to be unlikely on the basis of gel filtration studies and mixing experiments. These findings indicate that some aspect of the conformation of native ribonuclease B prevents one or more of the processing enzymes of bovine pancreas from acting on the oligosaccharide chain. In addition, the substrate specificity of this processing enzyme(s) differs markedly from its counterpart in rat liver. These two factors, conformation of the substrate and specificity of the processing enzymes, apparently combine to produce the high mannose oligosaccharide chain of ribonuclease B observed in vivo.