Long-range Regulation of Partially Folded Amyloidogenic Peptides.

ABSTRACT: Neurodegeneration involves abnormal aggregation of intrinsically disordered amyloidogenic peptides (IDPs), usually mediated by hydrophobic protein-protein interactions. There is mounting evidence that formation of ?-helical intermediates is an early event during self-assembly of amyloid-?42 (A?42) and ?-synuclein (?S) IDPs in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease pathogenesis, respectively. However, the driving force behind on-pathway molecular assembly of partially folded helical monomers into helical oligomers assembly remains unknown. Here, we employ extensive molecular dynamics simulations to sample the helical conformational sub-spaces of monomeric peptides of both A?42 and ?S. Our computed free energies, population shifts, and dynamic cross-correlation network analyses reveal a common feature of long-range intra-peptide modulation of partial helical folds of the amyloidogenic central hydrophobic domains via concerted coupling with their charged terminal tails (N-terminus of A?42 and C-terminus of ?S). The absence of such inter-domain fluctuations in both fully helical and completely unfolded (disordered) states suggests that long-range coupling regulates the dynamicity of partially folded helices, in both A?42 and ?S peptides. The inter-domain coupling suggests a form of intra-molecular allosteric regulation of the aggregation trigger in partially folded helical monomers. This approach could be applied to study the broad range of amyloidogenic peptides, which could provide a new path to curbing pathogenic aggregation of partially folded conformers into oligomers, by inhibition of sites far from the hydrophobic core.

SUBMITTER: Bhattacharya S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7200734 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature