Publication Date:
2016-01-26
Description:
Intracellular aggregation of the human amyloid protein alpha-synuclein is causally linked to Parkinson's disease. While the isolated protein is intrinsically disordered, its native structure in mammalian cells is not known. Here we use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to derive atomic-resolution insights into the structure and dynamics of alpha-synuclein in different mammalian cell types. We show that the disordered nature of monomeric alpha-synuclein is stably preserved in non-neuronal and neuronal cells. Under physiological cell conditions, alpha-synuclein is amino-terminally acetylated and adopts conformations that are more compact than when in buffer, with residues of the aggregation-prone non-amyloid-beta component (NAC) region shielded from exposure to the cytoplasm, which presumably counteracts spontaneous aggregation. These results establish that different types of crowded intracellular environments do not inherently promote alpha-synuclein oligomerization and, more generally, that intrinsic structural disorder is sustainable in mammalian cells.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Theillet, Francois-Xavier -- Binolfi, Andres -- Bekei, Beata -- Martorana, Andrea -- Rose, Honor May -- Stuiver, Marchel -- Verzini, Silvia -- Lorenz, Dorothea -- van Rossum, Marleen -- Goldfarb, Daniella -- Selenko, Philipp -- England -- Nature. 2016 Feb 4;530(7588):45-50. doi: 10.1038/nature16531. Epub 2016 Jan 25.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉In-Cell NMR Laboratory, Department of NMR-supported Structural Biology, Leibniz Institute of Molecular Pharmacology (FMP Berlin), Robert-Rossle Strasse 10, 13125 Berlin, Germany. ; Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. ; Department of Molecular Physiology and Cell Biology, Leibniz Institute of Molecular Pharmacology (FMP Berlin), Robert-Rossle Strasse 10, 13125 Berlin, Germany.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26808899" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Acetylation
;
Cell Line
;
Cytoplasm/chemistry/metabolism
;
Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy
;
HeLa Cells
;
Humans
;
Intracellular Space/*chemistry/*metabolism
;
Neurons/cytology/metabolism
;
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular
;
Protein Conformation
;
alpha-Synuclein/*chemistry/*metabolism
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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