A Population Shift between Sparsely Populated Folding Intermediates Determines Amyloidogenicity.
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Karamanos TK, Pashley CL, Kalverda AP, Thompson GS, Mayzel M, Orekhov VY, Radford SE
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 138 (19) 6271-6280 [2016-05-18; online 2016-05-06]
The balance between protein folding and misfolding is a crucial determinant of amyloid assembly. Transient intermediates that are sparsely populated during protein folding have been identified as key players in amyloid aggregation. However, due to their ephemeral nature, structural characterization of these species remains challenging. Here, using the power of nonuniformly sampled NMR methods we investigate the folding pathway of amyloidogenic and nonamyloidogenic variants of β2-microglobulin (β2m) in atomic detail. Despite folding via common intermediate states, we show that the decreased population of the aggregation-prone ITrans state and population of a less stable, more dynamic species ablate amyloid formation by increasing the energy barrier for amyloid assembly. The results show that subtle changes in conformational dynamics can have a dramatic effect in determining whether a protein is amyloidogenic, without perturbation of the mechanism of protein folding.
Swedish NMR Centre (SNC) [Collaborative]
PubMed 27117876
DOI 10.1021/jacs.6b02464
Crossref 10.1021/jacs.6b02464