Amyloid β (Aβ) peptides are a primary component of fibrils and oligomers implicated in the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the intrinsic flexibility of these peptides has frustrated efforts to investigate the secondary and tertiary structure of Aβ monomers, whose conformational landscapes directly contribute to the kinetics and thermodynamics of Aβ aggregation. In this work, de novo replica exchange molecular dynamics (REMD) simulations on the μs/replica timescale are used to characterize the structural ensembles of Aβ42, Aβ40, and M35-oxidized Aβ42, three physiologically relevant isoforms with substantially different aggregation properties. J-coupling data calculated from the REMD trajectories were compared to corresponding NMR-derived values acquired through two different pulse sequences, revealing that all simulations converge on the order of hundreds of ns/replica toward ensembles that yield good agreement with experiment. Though all three Aβ species adopt highly heterogeneous ensembles, these are considerably more structured compared to simulations on shorter timescales. Prominent in the C-terminus are antiparallel β-hairpins between L17-A21, A30-L36, and V39-I41, similar to oligomer and fibril intrapeptide models, that expose these hydrophobic side chains to solvent and may serve as hotspots for self-association. Compared to reduced Aβ42, the absence of a second β-hairpin in Aβ40 and the sampling of alternate β topologies by M35-oxidized Aβ42 may explain the reduced aggregation rates of these forms. A persistent V24-K28 bend motif, observed in all three species, is stabilized by buried backbone to side chain hydrogen bonds with D23 and a cross-region salt bridge between E22 and K28, highlighting the role of the familial AD-linked E22 and D23 residues in Aβ monomer folding. These characterizations help illustrate the conformational landscapes of Aβ monomers at atomic resolution and provide insight into the early stages of Aβ aggregation pathways.

The high Aβ42/Aβ40 production ratio is a hallmark of familial Alzheimer’s disease, which can be caused by mutations in the amyloid precursor protein (APP). The C-terminus of Aβ is generated by γ-secretase cleavage within the transmembrane domain of APP (APPTM), a process that is primed by an initial ε-cleavage at either T48 or L49, resulting in subsequent production of Aβ42 or Aβ40, respectively. Here we solve the dimer structures of wild-type APPTM (AAPTM WT) and mutant APPTM (FAD mutants V44M) with solution NMR. The right-handed APPTM helical dimer is mediated by GXXXA motif. From the NMR structural and dynamic data, we show that the V44M and V44A mutations can selectively expose the T48 site by weakening helical hydrogen bonds and increasing hydrogen–deuterium exchange rate (kex). We propose a structural model in which FAD mutations (V44M and V44A) can open the T48 site γ-secretase for the initial ε-cleavage, and consequently shift cleavage preference towards Aβ42.

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Protein splicing is a self-catalyzed and spontaneous post-translational process in which inteins excise themselves out of precursor proteins while the exteins are ligated together. We report the first discovery of an intramolecular disulfide bond between the two active site cysteines, Cys1 and Cys+1, in an intein precursor composed of the hyperthermophilic P. abyssi PolII intein and extein. The existence of this intramolecular disulfide bond is demonstrated by the effect of reducing agent on the precursor, mutagenesis, and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) with tandem MS (MS/MS) of the tryptic peptide containing the intramolecular disulfide bond. The disulfide bond inhibits protein splicing, and splicing can be induced by reducing agents such as tris (2-carboxyethyl) phosphine (TCEP). The stability of the intramolecular disulfide bond is enhanced by electrostatic interactions between the N- and C-exteins but is reduced by elevated temperature. The presence of this intramolecular disulfide bond may contribute to the redox control of splicing activity in hypoxia and at low temperature and point to the intriguing possibility that inteins may act as switches to control extein function.

The transmembrane (TM) anchors of cell surface proteins had been one of the "blind spots" in structural biology because they are generally very hydrophobic and sometimes dynamics, and are thus difficult targets for structural characterization. A plethora of examples showed that these membrane anchors are not merely anchors but can multimerize specifically to activate signaling receptors on the cell surface or to stabilize the envelope proteins in viruses. Through a series of studies of the TM domains of immune receptors and viral membrane proteins, we have established a robust protocol for determining atomic resolution structures of TM oligomers by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in bicelles that closely mimic a lipid bilayer. Here, we provide the details of the protocol consisting of five major sections: 1) general expression, purification, and bicelle reconstitution of hydrophobic TM and membrane-proximal domains; 2) determination of the oligomeric state of TM domains in bicelles; 3) detection of inter-molecular contacts; 4) structure determination; and 5) characterization of the protein TM partition. This protocol is broadly applicable to filling the structural gaps in membrane for many Type I/II membrane proteins.

In this paper, we study the existence and uniqueness of solution (EUS) as well as Hyers-Ulam stability for a coupled system of FDEs in Caputo's sense with nonlinear p-Laplacian operator. For this purpose, the suggested coupled system is transferred to an integral system with the help of four Green functions. Then using topological degree theory and Leray-Schauder's-type fixed point theorem, existence and uniqueness results are proved. An illustrative and expressive example is given as an application of the results.