Document Type

Article

Department/Program

Physics

Journal Title

Journal of Biological Chemistry

Pub Date

2016

Volume

291

Issue

35

First Page

18484

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Amyloid fibril deposits found in Alzheimer disease patients are composed of amyloid- (A) protein forming a number of hydrophobic interfaces that are believed to be mostly rigid. We have investigated the s-ms time-scale dynamics of the intra-strand hydrophobic core and interfaces of the fibrils composed of A(1-40) protein. Using solid-state H-2 NMR line shape experiments performed on selectively deuterated methyl groups, we probed the 3-fold symmetric and 2-fold symmetric polymorphs of native A as well as the protofibrils of D23N Iowa mutant, associated with an early onset of Alzheimer disease. The dynamics of the hydrophobic regions probed at Leu-17, Leu-34, Val-36, and Met-35 side chains were found to be very pronounced at all sites and in all polymorphs of A, with methyl axis motions persisting down to 230-200 K for most of the sites. The dominant mode of motions is the rotameric side chain jumps, with the Met-35 displaying the most complex multi-modal behavior. There are distinct differences in the dynamics among the three protein variants, with the Val-36 site displaying the most variability. Solvation of the fibrils does not affect methyl group motions within the hydrophobic core of individual cross- subunits but has a clear effect on the motions at the hydrophobic interface between the cross- subunits, which is defined by Met-35 contacts. In particular, hydration activates transitions between additional rotameric states that are not sampled in the dry protein. Thus, these results support the existence of water-accessible cavity recently predicted by molecular dynamics simulations and suggested by cryo-EM studies.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M116.740530

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