Preparation of uniformly 13C,15N-labeled recombinant human amylin for solid-state NMR investigation

Easy Production of "Difficult Peptides" Using Cell-Free Protein Synthesis and a New Methionine Analogue as a Latent Peptide Cleavage Site

Aliphatic γ-chloro-α-amino acids incorporated in place of their canonical analogues through cell-free protein synthesis act as heat-labile linkers, offering a useful strategy for the straightforward production of target peptides as fusion proteins, from which the targets are readily released. Until now, the natural abundance of aliphatic amino acids in peptides has limited the scope of the method, as it leads to undesired cleavage sites in synthesized products, but here the authors report the development of a new cleavable chloro amino acid that incorporates in place of the relatively rare amino acid methionine, thus greatly expanding the scope of producible targets. This new strategy is employed for simplified peptide synthesis with a methionine-free fusion partner, allowing single-site incorporation of the cleavable linker for clean release and easy purification of the target peptide. Its utility is demonstrated through the straightforward preparation of two peptides reported to be challenging targets and not accessible through standard solid-phase chemical methodologies, as well as analogues.

Expression, purification and characterisation of large quantities of recombinant human IAPP for mechanistic studies

Malfunction and amyloid formation of the Islet Amyloid Polypeptide (IAPP) are factors contributing to Type 2 diabetes. Unravelling the mechanism of IAPP aggregate formation may forward our understanding of this process and its effect on pancreatic β-islet cell. Such mechanistic studies require access to sequence homogeneous and highly pure IAPP. Here we present a new facile protocol for the production of pure recombinant human IAPP at relatively high yield. The protocol uses a His-tagged version of the Npro mutant EDDIE, which drives expression to inclusion bodies, from which the peptide is purified using sonication, refolding and auto-cleavage, removal of EDDIE using Ni-NTA chromatography and reverse-phase HPLC. The purified material is used at multiple concentrations in aggregation kinetics measurements monitored by thioflavin-T fluorescence. Global analysis of the data implies a double nucleation aggregation mechanism including both primary and secondary nucleation.

Recombinant human islet amyloid polypeptide forms shorter fibrils and mediates β-cell apoptosis via generation of oxidative stress

Protein misfolding and aggregation play an important role in many human diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) forms amyloid plaques in the pancreas of T2DM subjects (>95%) that are involved in deteriorating islet function and in mediating β-cell apoptosis. However, the detailed mechanism of action, structure and nature of toxic hIAPP species responsible for this effect remains elusive to date mainly due to the high cost associated with the chemical synthesis of pure peptide required for these studies. In the present work, we attempted to obtain structural and mechanistic insights into the hIAPP aggregation process using recombinant hIAPP (rhIAPP) isolated from Escherichia coli. Results from biophysical and structural studies indicate that the rhIAPP self-assembled into highly pure, β-sheet-rich amyloid fibrils with uniform morphology. rhIAPP-mediated apoptosis in INS-1E cells was associated with increased oxidative stress and changes in mitochondrial membrane potential. The transcript levels of apoptotic genes - Caspase-3 and Bax were found to be up-regulated, while the levels of the anti-apoptotic gene - Bcl2 were down-regulated in rhIAPP-treated cells. Additionally, the expression levels of genes involved in combating oxidative stress namely Catalase, SOD1 and GPx were down-regulated. rhIAPP exposure also affected glucose-stimulated insulin secretion from isolated pancreatic islets. The aggregation of rhIAPP also occurred significantly faster when compared with that of the chemically synthesized peptide. We also show that the rhIAPP fibrils were shorter and more cytotoxic. In summary, our study is one among the few to provide comprehensive evaluation of structural, biophysical and cytotoxic properties of rhIAPP.

Structural Characterization of Fibrils from Recombinant Human Islet Amyloid Polypeptide by Solid-State NMR: The Central FGAILS Segment Is Part of the β-Sheet Core

Amyloid deposits formed from islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) are a hallmark of type 2 diabetes mellitus and are known to be cytotoxic to pancreatic β-cells. The molecular structure of the fibrillar form of IAPP is subject of intense research, and to date, different models exist. We present results of solid-state NMR experiments on fibrils of recombinantly expressed and uniformly 13C, 15N-labeled human IAPP in the non-amidated, free acid form. Complete sequential resonance assignments and resulting constraints on secondary structure are shown. A single set of chemical shifts is found for most residues, which is indicative of a high degree of homogeneity. The core region comprises three to four β-sheets. We find that the central 23-FGAILS-28 segment, which is of critical importance for amyloid formation, is part of the core region and forms a β-strand in our sample preparation. The eight N-terminal amino acid residues of IAPP, forming a ring-like structure due to a disulfide bridge between residues C2 and C7, appear to be well defined but with an increased degree of flexibility. This study supports the elucidation of the structural basis of IAPP amyloid formation and highlights the extent of amyloid fibril polymorphism.

Isotope-Labeled Amyloids via Synthesis, Expression, and Chemical Ligation for Use in FTIR, 2D IR, and NMR Studies

This chapter provides protocols for isotope-labeling the human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP or amylin) involved in type II diabetes and γD-crystallin involved in cataract formation. Because isotope labeling improves the structural resolution, these protocols are useful for experiments using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), two-dimensional infrared (2D IR), and NMR spectroscopies. Our research group specializes in using 2D IR spectroscopy and isotope labeling. 2D IR spectroscopy provides structural information by measuring solvation from 2D diagonal lineshapes and vibrational couplings from cross peaks. Infrared spectroscopy can be used to study kinetics, membrane proteins, and aggregated proteins. Isotope labeling provides greater certainty in the spectral assignment, which enables new structural insights that are difficult to obtain with other methods. For amylin, we provide a protocol for (13)C/(18)O labeling backbone carbonyls at one or more desired amino acids in order to obtain residue-specific structural resolution. We also provide a protocol for expressing and purifying amylin from E. coli, which enables uniform (13)C or (13)C/(15)N labeling. Uniform labeling is useful for measuring the monomer infrared spectrum in an amyloid oligomer or fiber as well as amyloid protein bound to another polypeptide or protein, such as a chaperone or an inhibitor. In addition, our expression protocol results in 2-2.5 mg of amylin peptide per 1 L cell culture, which is a high enough yield to straightforwardly obtain the 2-10 mg needed for high resolution and solid-state NMR experiments. Finally, we provide a protocol to isotope-label either of the two domains of γD-crystallin using expressed protein ligation. Domain labeling makes it possible to resolve the structures of the two halves of the protein in FTIR and 2D IR spectra. With modifications, these strategies and protocols for isotope labeling can be applied to other amyloid polypeptides and proteins.