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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Spine J. 2013 Nov 6;14(3):416–423. doi: 10.1016/j.spinee.2013.08.034

Fig. 3. Effects of cigarette smoke exposure on disc aggrecan proteolysis.

Fig. 3

(A) A schematic representation of mouse PG aggregate consisting of the core aggrecan protein bound to hyaluronan via a linker protein. The MMP-mediated cleavage site (yielding VDIPEN neo-epitope) and ADAMTS-mediated cleavage site (yielding NVTEGE neo-epitope) within the IGD residing between the G1 and G2 domain of aggrecan are indicated. (B) A representative immunoblot of G1 fragments bearing the NVTEGE and VDIPEN neo-epitopes. Protein size marker (M),unexposed controls (U), smoke-exposed (S). To control for loading, proteins extracted from 1 mg of disc tissue wet weight were loaded per well. The anti-NITEGE neoepitope antibody crossreacts with the NVTEGE neoepitope generated from mouse aggrecan.