Conservation and amyloid formation: A study of the gelsolin‐like family
Citations Over TimeTop 23% of 2003 papers
Abstract
The mechanism through which globular proteins transform into amyloid fibrils is still not understood. Here we analyze the structure and sequence conservation to assess the differential stability of segments from two structurally related protein families: the amyloidogenic gelsolin-like and its structurally related cofilin-like. The two families belong to the actin depolymerizing proteins, with a central beta-sheet stacked between 2 and 4 alpha-helices. Although sequentially remote, the two families share regions of high and low conservation and stability. Our results show a highly conserved hydrophobic and aromatic cluster, located at a central buried beta-hairpin. The geometry of the aromatic residues with respect to each other is strictly conserved, suggesting involvement in strand registering and beta-sheet stabilization. Consistent with experiment, we find a region of weak conservation and stability at one of the exposed beta-strands (strand B in the gelsolin-like family). This region was recently found to be affected by a point mutation-mediated destabilization of the human gelsolin domain 2, which facilitates the first proteolytic event in the formation of the amyloidogenic fragment. Thus, both experimental and computational conservation analyses suggest that this unstable region may constitute a first step in amyloid formation. Our analysis uses a recently developed multiple-structure comparison algorithm in which molecules are aligned simultaneously.
Related Papers
- → Modulation of actin filament dynamics by actin-binding proteins residing in lamellipodia(2010)22 cited
- → Characterization of Gelsolin Truncates that Inhibit Actin Depolymerization by Severing Activity of Gelsolin and Cofilin(1997)17 cited
- → Binding of gelsolin domain 2 to actin(2001)15 cited
- → Towards gelsolin amyloid formation(2004)7 cited
- → Faculty Opinions recommendation of Insights into the evolution of regulated actin dynamics via characterization of primitive gelsolin/cofilin proteins from Asgard archaea.(2020)