Antibodies against the extracellular domain of human Notch1 receptor reveal the critical role of epidermal-growth-factor-like repeats 25–26in ligand binding and receptor activation

The Notch signalling pathway is implicated in a wide variety of cellular processes throughout metazoan development. Although the downstream mechanism of Notch signalling has been extensively studied, the details of its ligand-mediated receptor activation are not clearly understood. Although the role of Notch ELRs [EGF (epidermal growth factor)-like-repeats] 11–12 in ligand binding is known, recent studies have suggested interactions within different ELRs of the Notch receptor whose significance remains to be understood. Here, we report critical inter-domain interactions between human Notch1 ELRs 21–30 and the ELRs 11–15 that are modulated by calcium. Surface plasmon resonance analysis revealed that the interaction between ELRs 21–30 and ELRs 11–15 is ~10-fold stronger than that between ELRs 11–15 and the ligands. Although there was no interaction between Notch1 ELRs 21–30 and the ligands in vitro, addition of pre-clustered Jagged1Fc resulted in the dissociation of the preformed complex between ELRs 21–30 and 11–15, suggesting that inter-domain interactions compete for ligand binding. Furthermore, the antibodies against ELRs 21–30 inhibited ligand binding to the full-length Notch1 and subsequent receptor activation, with the antibodies against ELRs 25–26 being the most effective. These results suggest that the ELRs 25–26 represent a cryptic ligand-binding site which becomes exposed only upon the presence of the ligand. Thus, using specific antibodies against various domains of the Notch1 receptor, we demonstrate that, although ELRs 11–12 are the principal ligand-binding site, the ELRs 25–26 serve as a secondary binding site and play an important role in receptor activation.