N-terminal domain on dystroglycan enables LARGE1 to extend matriglycan on α-dystroglycan and prevents muscular dystrophy
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Iowa, United States
- University of Shizuoka, Japan
- Teikyo University, Japan
Abstract
Dystroglycan (DG) requires extensive post-translational processing and O-glycosylation to function as a receptor for extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins containing laminin-G-like (LG) domains. Matriglycan is an elongated polysaccharide of alternating xylose (Xyl) and glucuronic acid (GlcA) that binds with high-affinity to ECM proteins with LG-domains and is uniquely synthesized on α-dystroglycan (α-DG) by like-acetylglucosaminyltransferase-1 (LARGE1). Defects in the post-translational processing or O-glycosylation of α-DG that result in a shorter form of matriglycan reduce the size of α-DG and decrease laminin binding, leading to various forms of muscular dystrophy. Previously, we demonstrated that Protein O-Mannose Kinase (POMK) is required for LARGE1 to generate full-length matriglycan on α-DG (~150-250 kDa) (Walimbe et al., 2020). Here, we show that LARGE1 can only synthesize a short, non-elongated form of matriglycan in mouse skeletal muscle that lacks the DG N-terminus (α-DGN), resulting in a ~100-125 kDa α-DG. This smaller form of α-DG binds laminin and maintains specific force but does not prevent muscle pathophysiology, including reduced force production after eccentric contractions or abnormalities in the neuromuscular junctions. Collectively, our study demonstrates that α-DGN, like POMK, is required for LARGE1 to extend matriglycan to its full mature length on α-DG and thus prevent muscle pathophysiology.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting file; Source Data files have been provided for Figures 2C, 5C, 6B, 7B, Figure 2-figure supplement 1, Figure 2-figure supplement 2, Figure 5-figure supplement 1B, and Figure 6-figure supplement 1.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Specialized Research Center (1U54NS053672)
- Kevin P Campbell
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Kevin P Campbell
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All animal experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) protocols of the University of Iowa (#0081122).
Copyright
© 2023, Okuma et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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N-terminal domain on dystroglycan enables LARGE1 to extend matriglycan on α-dystroglycan and prevents muscular dystrophy
eLife 12:e82811.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82811
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