Abeta-amino acid modified heptapeptide containing a designed recognition element disrupts fibrillization of the amyloid â peptide.

CASTELLETTO V; HAMLEY IW; LIM T; DE TULLIO MB; CASTAÑO EM

JOURNAL OF PEPTIDE SCIENCE : AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE EUROPEAN PEPTIDE SOCIETY.

JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD

Año: 2010 vol. 16 p. 443 - 450

1075-2617

We study the complex formation of a peptide betaAbetaAKLVFF, previously developed by our group, with Abeta(1-42) in aqueous solution. Circular dichroism spectroscopy is used to probe the interactions between betaAbetaAKLVFF and Abeta(1-42), and to study the secondary structure of the species in solution. Thioflavin T fluorescence spectroscopy shows that the population of fibers is higher in betaAbetaAKLVFF/Abeta(1-42) mixtures compared to pure Abeta(1-42) solutions. TEM and cryo-TEM demonstrate that co-incubation of betaAbetaAKLVFF with Abeta(1-42) causes the formation of extended dense networks of branched fibrils, very different from the straight fibrils observed for Abeta(1-42) alone. Neurotoxicity assays show that although betaAbetaAKLVFF alters the fibrillization of Abeta(1-42), it does not decrease the neurotoxicity, which suggests that toxic oligomeric Abeta(1-42) species are still present in the betaAbetaAKLVFF/Abeta(1-42) mixtures. Our results show that our designed peptide binds to Abeta(1-42) and changes the amyloid fibril morphology. This is shown to not necessarily translate into reduced toxicity