Deciphering the roles of N-glycans on collagen-platelet interactions

Collagen is a potent agonist for platelet activation, presenting itself as a key contributor to coagulation via interactions with platelet glycoproteins. The fine-details dictating platelet-collagen interactions are poorly understood. In particular, glycosylation could be a key determinant in the platelet-collagen interaction. Here we report an affinity purification coupled to mass spectrometry-based approach to elucidate the function of N-glycans in dictating platelet-collagen interactions. By integrative proteomic and glycoproteomic analysis of collagen-platelet interactive proteins with N-glycan manipulation, we demonstrate that the interaction of platelet adhesive receptors with collagen are highly N-glycan regulated, with glycans on many receptors playing positive roles on collagen binding, with glycans on other platelet glycoproteins exhibiting inhibitory roles on the binding to collagen. Our results significantly enhance our understanding of the details of glycans influencing the platelet-collagen interaction.