Glycosaminoglycan (GAG)-collagen interactions play important roles in cell adhesion and extracellular matrix assembly; however, the chemical bases for these interactions are not fully understood. We have used affinity co-electrophoresis (ACE) (Lee, M.K. and Lander, A.D., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, USA, 88, 2768-2772, 1991) to study the binding of the heparan sulphate proteoglycan syndecan-1 and heparin to human collagens. [35S]Syndecan-1 [from normal murine mammary gland (NMuMG) epithelial cells] and low-M(r) (approximately 6 kDa) [125I]heparin were subjected to electrophoresis through agarose gel lanes containing human collagens at various concentrations, and binding affinities were measured from shifts in migration of the labelled materials. Results demonstrate that the affinities of each collagen for syndecan-1 and low-M(r) heparin were similar, and followed the order: type V >> type IV approximately type III approximately type I > type VI >> type II, and ranged in Kd from approximately 10(-8) to approximately 3 x 10(-6) M. These data suggest that syndecan-1 and heparin may contain similar collagen-binding determinants. It was also found that the same heparin subpopulation was selectively bound with high affinity by each of the collagens. The published amino acid sequences of the six collagens were examined for what are thought to be heparin-binding consensus sequences (Cardin, A.D. and Weintraub, H.J.R., Arteriosclerosis, 9, 21-32, 1989). The presence of such sequences did not correlate with affinity for heparin or syndecan-1, and collagens I, II and III lacked such sequences entirely. The data suggest that collagens may use novel types of binding sites to interact with GAGs.

ARH-77 cells do not adhere to type I collagen and readily invade into collagen gels, but following expression of the transmembrane heparan sulfate proteoglycan syndecan-1, they bind collagen and fail to invade. We now show that cells transfected with syndecan-2 or syndecan-4 also bind collagen and are non-invasive. In contrast, cells transfected with the glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored proteoglycan glypican-1 do not bind to collagen and remain invasive, even though glypican- and syndecan-expressing cells have similar surface levels of heparan sulfate, and their proteoglycans have similar affinities for collagen. Analysis of cells expressing syndecan-1-glypican-1 chimeric proteoglycans reveals that inhibition of invasion requires the extracellular domain of syndecan but not its transmembrane or cytoplasmic domain. Surprisingly, cells bearing a chimera composed of the glypican extracellular domain fused to the syndecan transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains bind to collagen but remain invasive, implying that adhesion to collagen is not by itself sufficient to inhibit invasion. Apparently, the extracellular domain of syndecan-1, presumably by interacting with cell-surface signal transducing molecules, directly regulates complex cell behaviors such as motility and invasiveness. These results also show for the first time that syndecans and glypicans can have distinct functions, even when expressed by the same cell type.