Abstract 1808: Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) <i>N</i>-glycosylation modulates angiogenic signaling
Authors: Kevin B. Chandler, Deborah R. Leon, Rosana D. Meyer, Nader Rahimi, Catherine E. Costello
Journal: Cancer Research (2017)

Abstract Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels from pre-existing vessels, is required for tumor growth and metastasis. Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) is one of the most important receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) among the VEGF receptor subfamily, and activation of VEGFR-2 is essential for tumor angiogenesis. The extracellular domain of VEGFR-2 contains seven immunoglobulin-like (Ig) domains, each with multiple potential N-glycosylation sites. N-glycosylation is thought to play a central role in receptor stability, ligand binding and trafficking. However, to date the occupancy and glycoform distributions at each of the potential N-glycosylation sites and their putative role(s) in VEGFR-2 function remain largely unknown. The objective of this study is to investigate the functional importance of VEGFR-2 N-glycosylation in VEGFR-2 angiogenic signaling. Porcine aortic endothelial (PAE) cells with ectopic expression of VEGFR-2 were treated with PNGase F to remove N-linked glycans or heat-denatured PNGase F as a control. Following PNGase F treatment for 4 hours, cells were treated with VEGF-A ligand for 0, 5, 10 or 30 minutes. VEGFR-2 phosphorylation (activation) was measured via Western blot with an anti-pTyr-1054-VEGFR-2 antibody. In addition, a polyclonal anti-VEGFR2 antibody was used to immunoprecipitate untreated and PNGase F-treated VEGFR-2 from PAE cell lysates. Evaluation of the N-glycosylation sites targeted by PNGase F was carried out by gel electrophoresis, followed by protease digestion and MS/MS analysis. MS/MS data were processed using Proteome Discoverer 1.4. To obtain site-specific glycosylation information we performed proteolysis of VEGFR-2, glycopeptide enrichment via hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) and subsequent analysis of glycopeptides with an Agilent 6550 Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (Q-TOF) MS using collision-induced dissociation. We detected a dramatic increase in ligand-mediated activation of VEGFR-2 after treatment with PNGase F, suggesting that certain N-linked glycans may hinder ligand access to the VEGF binding site, or that removal of N-linked glycans results in conformational changes that lead to increased activation of the receptor by VEGF-A. To explore this observation in greater detail, we have created a series of VEGFR-2 N-glycosylation site mutants, and we are now using the mutants to determine which glycosylation sites are involved in the observed modulation of VEGFR-2 signaling. Citation Format: Kevin B. Chandler, Deborah R. Leon, Rosana D. Meyer, Nader Rahimi, Catherine E. Costello. Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) N-glycosylation modulates angiogenic signaling [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1808. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-1808