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Articles

The role of the acidic domain of α-synuclein in amyloid fibril formation: a molecular dynamics study

, , , &
Pages 376-383
Received 07 Jan 2015
Accepted 19 Mar 2015
Accepted author version posted online: 13 Apr 2015
Published online: 01 May 2015

The detailed mechanism of the pathology of α-synuclein in the Parkinson’s disease has not been clearly elucidated. Recent studies suggested a possible chaperone-like role of the acidic C-terminal region of α-synuclein in the formation of amyloid fibrils. It was also previously demonstrated that the α-synuclein amyloid fibril formation is accelerated by mutations of proline residues to alanine in the acidic region. We performed replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations of the acidic and nonamyloid component (NAC) domains of the wild type and proline-to-alanine mutants of α-synuclein under various conditions. Our results showed that structural changes induced by a change in pH or an introduction of mutations lead to a reduction in mutual contacts between the NAC and acidic regions. Our data suggest that the highly charged acidic region of α-synuclein may act as an intramolecular chaperone by protecting the hydrophobic domain from aggregation. Understanding the function of such chaperone-like parts of fibril-forming proteins may provide novel insights into the mechanism of amyloid formation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) [grant number 2007-0056095 (CMD)], [grant number 2012M3C1A6035358 (EDISON)], [grant number 2012M3A9D1054622 (BIT)]; Supercomputing Center (KISTI).

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