Elucidation of Amyloid β-Protein Oligomerization Mechanisms: Discrete Molecular Dynamics Study

Oligomers of amyloid β-protein (Aβ) play a central role in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. Of the two predominant Aβ alloforms, Aβ1–40 and Aβ1–42, Aβ1–42 is more strongly implicated in the disease. We elucidated the structural characteristics of oligomers of Aβ1–40 and Aβ1–42 and their Arctic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Chemical Society
Main Authors: Urbanc, B., Betnel, M., Cruz, L., Bitan, G., Teplow, D. B.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5767167/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20218566
https://doi.org/10.1021/ja9096303
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Summary:Oligomers of amyloid β-protein (Aβ) play a central role in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. Of the two predominant Aβ alloforms, Aβ1–40 and Aβ1–42, Aβ1–42 is more strongly implicated in the disease. We elucidated the structural characteristics of oligomers of Aβ1–40 and Aβ1–42 and their Arctic mutants, [E22G]Aβ1–40 and [E22G]Aβ1–42. We simulated oligomer formation using discrete molecular dynamics (DMD) with a four-bead protein model, backbone hydrogen bonding, and residue-specific interactions due to effective hydropathy and charge. For all four peptides under study, we derived the characteristic oligomer size distributions that were in agreement with prior experimental findings. Unlike Aβ1–40, Aβ1–42 had a high propensity to form paranuclei (pentameric or hexameric) structures that could self-associate into higher-order oligomers. Neither of the Arctic mutants formed higher-order oligomers, but [E22G]Aβ1–40 formed paranuclei with a similar propensity to that of Aβ1–42. Whereas the best agreement with the experimental data was obtained when the charged residues were modeled as solely hydrophilic, further assembly from spherical oligomers into elongated protofibrils was induced by nonzero electrostatic interactions among the charged residues. Structural analysis revealed that the C-terminal region played a dominant role in Aβ1–42 oligomer formation whereas Aβ1–40 oligomerization was primarily driven by intermolecular interactions among the central hydrophobic regions. The N-terminal region A2-F4 played a prominent role in Aβ1–40 oligomerization but did not contribute to the oligomerization of Aβ1–42 or the Arctic mutants. The oligomer structure of both Arctic peptides resembled Aβ1–42 more than Aβ1–40, consistent with their potentially more toxic nature.