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Letter

Nature Chemical Biology 3, 773–778 (1 December 2007) | doi:10.1038/nchembio.2007.41

Transgenic or tumor-induced expression of heparanase upregulates sulfation of heparan sulfate

Martha L Escobar Galvis , Juan Jia , Xiao Zhang , Nadja Jastrebova , Dorothe Spillmann , Eva Gottfridsson , Toin H van Kuppevelt , Eyal Zcharia , Israel Vlodavsky , Ulf Lindahl & Jin-Ping Li

Heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) interact with numerous proteins of importance in animal development and homeostasis. Heparanase, which is expressed in normal tissues and upregulated in angiogenesis, cancer and inflammation, selectively cleaves β-glucuronidic linkages in HS chains.