摘要
Human cystatin C variant (L68Q), one of the amyloidgenic proteins, has been shown to form dimeric structure spontaneously via domain swapping and easily cause amyloid deposits in the brains of patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease or hereditary cystatin C amyloid angiopathy. The monomeric L68Q and wild-type (wt) HCCs share similar structural feature consisting of a core with a five-stranded anti-parallel β-sheet (β-region) wrapped around a central helix. In this study, various molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the conformational fluctuations of the monomeric L68Q and wt HCCs at various combinations of temperature (300 and 500K) and pH (2 and 7) to gain insights into the domain swapping mechanism. The results show that elevated temperature accelerates the disruption of the hydrophobic core and acidic condition promotes the destruction of three salt bridges between β2 and β3 in both HCCs. The results also indicate that the interior hydrophobic core of the L68Q variant is relatively unstable, leading to domain swapping more readily comparing to wt HCC under conditions favoring this process. However, these two monomeric HCCs adopt the same mechanism of domain swapping as follows: (i) first, the interior hydrophobic core is disrupted; (ii) subsequently, the central helix departs from the β-region; (iii) then, the β2-L1-β3 hairpin structure unfolds following the so-called "zip-up" mechanism; and (iv) finally, the open form HCC is generated.
原文 | 英語 |
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頁(從 - 到) | 135-144 |
頁數 | 10 |
期刊 | Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics |
卷 | 25 |
發行號 | 2 |
DOIs | |
出版狀態 | 已發佈 - 10月 2007 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- 分子生物學
- 結構生物學