All-d-Enantiomeric Peptide D3 Designed for Alzheimer's Disease Treatment Dynamically Interacts with Membrane-Bound Amyloid-β Precursors

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a severe neurodegenerative pathology with no effective treatment known. Toxic amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) oligomers play a crucial role in AD pathogenesis. All-d-Enantiomeric peptide D3 and its derivatives were developed to disassemble and destroy cytotoxic Aβ aggregates. One of the D3-like compounds is approaching phase II clinical trials; however, high-resolution details of its disease-preventing or pharmacological actions are not completely clear. We demonstrate that peptide D3 stabilizing Aβ monomer dynamically interacts with the extracellular juxtamembrane region of a membrane-bound fragment of an amyloid precursor protein containing the Aβ sequence. MD simulations based on NMR measurement results suggest that D3 targets the amyloidogenic region, not compromising its α-helicity and preventing intermolecular hydrogen bonding, thus creating prerequisites for inhibition of early steps of Aβ conversion into β-conformation and its toxic oligomerization. An enhanced understanding of the D3 action molecular mechanism facilitates development of effective AD treatment and prevention strategies.

Review of lactose-driven auto-induction expression of isotope-labelled proteins

NMR is an important method in the structural and functional characterization of proteins, but such experiments typically require isotopic labelling because of the low natural abundance of the nuclei of interest. Isotope-labelled protein for NMR experiments is typically obtained from IPTG-inducible bacterial expression systems in a minimal media that contains labelled carbon or nitrogen sources. Optimization of expression conditions is crucial yet challenging; large amounts of labelled protein are desired, yet protein yields are lower in minimal media, while the labelled precursors are expensive. Faced with these challenges there is a growing body of literature that apply innovative methods of induction to optimize the yield of isotope-labelled protein. A promising technique is lactose-driven auto-induction as it mitigates user intervention and can lead to higher protein yields. This review assesses the current advances and limitations surrounding the ability of researchers to isotope label proteins using auto-induction, and it identifies key components for optimization.

Cell-free expression of the APP transmembrane fragments with Alzheimer's disease mutations using algal amino acid mixture for structural NMR studies

Structural investigations need ready supply of the isotope labeled proteins with inserted mutations n the quantities sufficient for the heteronuclear NMR. Though cell-free expression system has been widely used in the past years, high startup cost and complex compound composition prevent many researches from the developing this technique, especially for membrane protein production. Here we demonstrate the utility of a robust, cost-optimized cell-free expression technique for production of the physiologically important transmembrane fragment of amyloid precursor protein, APP686-726, containing Alzheimer's disease mutations in the juxtamembrane (E693G, Arctic form) and the transmembrane parts (V717G, London form, or L723P, Australian form). The protein cost was optimized by varying the FM/RM ratio as well as the amino acid concentration. We obtained the wild-type and mutant transmembrane fragments in the pellet mode of continuous exchange cell-free system consuming only commercial algal mixture of the (13)C,(15)N-labeled amino acids. Scaling up analytical tests, we achieved milligram quantity yields of isotope labeled wild-type and mutant APP686-726 for structural studies by high resolution NMR spectroscopy in membrane mimicking environment. The described approach has from 5 to 23-fold cost advantage over the bacterial expression methods described earlier and 1.5 times exceeds our previous result obtained with the longer APP671-726WT fragment.

HER2 Transmembrane Domain Dimerization Coupled with Self-Association of Membrane-Embedded Cytoplasmic Juxtamembrane Regions

Receptor tyrosine kinases of the human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER or ErbB) family transduce biochemical signals across plasma membrane, playing a significant role in vital cellular processes and in various cancers. Inactive HER/ErbB receptors exist in equilibrium between the monomeric and unspecified pre-dimerized states. After ligand binding, the receptors are involved in strong lateral dimerization with proper assembly of their extracellular ligand-binding, single-span transmembrane, and cytoplasmic kinase domains. The dimeric conformation of the HER2 transmembrane domain that is believed to support the cytoplasmic kinase domain configuration corresponding to the receptor active state was previously described in lipid bicelles. Here we used high-resolution NMR spectroscopy in another membrane-mimicking micellar environment and identified an alternative HER2 transmembrane domain dimerization coupled with self-association of membrane-embedded cytoplasmic juxtamembrane region. Such a dimerization mode appears to be capable of effectively inhibiting the receptor kinase activity. This finding refines the molecular mechanism regarding the signal propagation steps from the extracellular to cytoplasmic domains of HER/ErbB receptors.