Cross-Seeding Controls Aβ Fibril Populations and Resulting Functions

Abstract

Amyloid peptides nucleate from monomers to aggregate into fibrils through primary nucleation. Pre-existing fibrils can then act as seeds for additional monomers to fibrillize through secondary nucleation. Both nucleation processes occur simultaneously, yielding a distribution of fibril polymorphs that can generate a spectrum of neurodegenerative effects. Understanding the mechanisms driving polymorph structural distribution during both nucleation processes is important for uncovering fibril structure–function relationships, as well as for creating polymorph distributions in vitro that better match fibril structures found in vivo. Here, we explore how cross-seeding wild-type (WT) Aβ1–40 with Aβ1–40 mutants E22G (Arctic) and E22Δ (Osaka), as well as with WT Aβ1–42, affects the distribution of fibril structural polymorphs and how changes in structural distribution impact toxicity. Transmission electron microscopy analysis revealed that fibril seeds derived from mutants of Aβ1–40 imparted their structure to WT Aβ1–40 monomers during secondary nucleation, but WT Aβ1–40 fibril seeds do not affect the structure of fibrils assembled from mutant Aβ1–40 monomers, despite the kinetic data indicating accelerated aggregation when cross-seeding of any combination of mutants. Additionally, WT Aβ1–40 fibrils seeded with mutant fibrils produced similar structural distributions to the mutant seeds with similar cytotoxicity profiles. This indicates that mutant fibril seeds not only impart their structure to growing WT Aβ1–40 aggregates but also impart cytotoxic properties. Our findings establish a relationship between the fibril structure and the phenotype on a polymorph population level and that these properties can be passed on through secondary nucleation to the succeeding generations of fibrils.

Investigation of α‐Synuclein and Amyloid‐β(42)‐E22Δ Oligomers Using SiN Nanopore Functionalized with L‐Dopa

“…Here, we can argue that the acceleration occurs at a very early stage of the aggregation process since, compared to the classical detection methods, nanopore sensing does not require that aggregates adopt a β‐sheet structure. This also confirms the cross‐seeding acceleration process of amyloid with several variants [31] …”