Heparin inhibition of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 binding to human fibroblasts and rat glioma cells: role of heparan sulfate proteoglycans.

The mitogenic action of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) on target cells is determined by interaction with signaling IGF-I receptors and modulated by interactions with IGF-binding proteins (IGFBPs). IGFBP-3, an abundant IGFBP that binds IGF-I and IGF-II with high affinity, can form soluble inhibitory complexes with the IGFs that prevent them from binding to IGF-I receptors. Alternatively, IGFBP-3 can bind to the cell surface and possibly potentiate IGF action or act independently of the IGFs. Previous studies showed that heparin inhibited IGFBP-3 binding to the cell surface and increased its accumulation in the medium, suggesting that it might act as a competitive inhibitor of IGFBP-3 binding to structurally similar heparan sulfate proteoglycans on the cell surface. We evaluated this hypothesis by binding 125I-labeled recombinant glycosylated human IGFBP-3 to human fetal skin fibroblasts (GM-10) and to C6 rat glioma cells at 12 C. Heparin inhibited [125I]IGFBP-3 binding more effectively than chondroitin sulfate and dextran sulfate. Complete digestion of cell surface heparan sulfate and chondroitin sulfate glycosaminoglycans using heparitinase and chondroitinase ABC, however, did not significantly decrease IGFBP-3 binding. Quantitative removal was demonstrated by analysis of parallel cultures of cells whose glycosaminoglycans had been biosynthetically labeled using Na2 35SO4. These results suggested that IGFBP-3 did not bind to heparan sulfate glycosaminoglycans on the cell surface, and that the inhibition of IGFBP-3 binding by heparin most likely resulted from its direct interaction with the heparin-binding domains of IGFBP-3. When [125I]IGFBP-3 was incubated with GM-10 fibroblasts or C6 glioma cells at 37 C for 4 h, only 10% of the bound ligand remained associated with the cell surface; approximately 90% of the cell-associated radio-activity was internalized and could be recovered in lysates of acid-washed cells. Incubation with IGF-I or heparin decreased the total cell-associated radioactivity, but did not affect internalization. These results suggest that direct interaction of heparin or IGF-I with IGFBP-3 inhibits its ability to bind to the surface of GM-10 fibroblasts and C6 glioma cells.