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(American Journal of Pathology. 2005;167:1173-1181.)
© 2005 American Society for Investigative Pathology

Binding of Complement Factor H to Endothelial Cells Is Mediated by the Carboxy-Terminal Glycosaminoglycan Binding Site

T. Sakari Jokiranta^*, Zhu-Zhu Cheng^*, Harald Seeberger, Mihály Jòzsi, Stefan Heinen, Marina Noris, Giuseppe Remuzzi, Rebecca Ormsby, David L. Gordon, Seppo Meri^*, Jens Hellwage and Peter F. Zipfel

From the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology,^* Haartman Institute and Huslab, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland; the Molecular Immunobiology Group and the Department for Infection Biology, Hans Knoell Institute for Natural Products Research, Jena, Germany; the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, Bergamo, Italy; and the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Flinders Medical Centre and Flinders University of South Australia, Bedford Park, Australia

Factor H (FH), the major fluid phase regulator of the alternative complement pathway, mediates protection of plasma-exposed host structures. It has recently been shown that short consensus repeats 19 to 20 of FH are mutational hot spots associated with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS), a disease with endothelial cell damage. Domain 20 of FH contains binding sites for heparin, C3b, and the cleavage product C3d. To study the role of these binding sites in target recognition, we performed site-directed mutagenesis in domain 20 and assayed the resulting recombinant proteins. The mutant FH15-20A (substitutions R1203E, R1206E, and R1210S) bound neither heparin nor endothelial cells. Similarly, an aHUS-derived mutant FH protein (E1172Stop, lacking domain 20) failed to bind endothelial cells and showed impaired binding to heparin. Binding of FH to endothelial cells was inhibited by heparin and a specific monoclonal antibody that inhibited heparin but not C3d binding, demonstrating that the heparin site on domains 19 to 20 mediates interaction of FH to endothelial cells. Binding of FH15-20 to heparin was inhibited by several cell surface- and basement membrane-associated glycosaminoglycans, suggesting that binding site specificity is not restricted to heparin. Thus, defective heparin/glycosaminoglycan-binding site on domains 19 to 20 of FH most probably mediates complement-induced endothelial cell damage in aHUS.

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