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  4. Structural Basis of Huntingtin Fibril Polymorphism Revealed by Cryogenic Electron Microscopy of Exon 1 HTT Fibrils
 
research article

Structural Basis of Huntingtin Fibril Polymorphism Revealed by Cryogenic Electron Microscopy of Exon 1 HTT Fibrils

Nazarov, Sergey  
•
Chiki, Anass  
•
Boudeffa, Driss  
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June 22, 2022
Journal Of The American Chemical Society

The lack of detailed insight into the structure of aggregates formed by the huntingtin protein (HTT) has hampered the efforts to develop therapeutics and diagnostics targeting pathology formation in the brain of patients with Huntington's disease. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated the structural properties of in vitro-generated fibrils from exon1 of the huntingtin protein by cryogenic electron microscopy and single-particle analyses. We show that wildtype and mutant exon1 of the huntingtin protein form nonhelical fibrils with a polyglutamine amyloid core composed of beta hairpins with unique characteristics that have not been previously observed with other amyloid filaments. The stacks of beta-hairpins form long planar beta-sheets (protofilaments) which combine inter- and intramolecular interactions, with variable stacking angles and occasional out-of-register states of individual beta-hairpins. These features and the propensity of protofilaments to undergo lateral association result in a high degree of fibril polymorphisms, including fibrils composed of varying numbers of protofilaments. Our results allow us to speculate on how the fianking domains are organized around the polyglutamine core of the fibril and provide insight into how they might affect the huntingtin fibril structure and polymorphism. The removal of the first 17 amino acids at the N-terminus resulted in surprising intra-fibril structural heterogeneity and reduced fibril's propensity to lateral associations. Overall, this work provides valuable insights that could help guide future mechanistic studies to elucidate the sequence and structural determinants of huntingtin aggregation, as well as for cryo-EM and structural studies of fibrils derived from huntingtin protein and other disease-associated polyglutamine-containing proteins.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1021/jacs.2c00509
Web of Science ID

WOS:000817162200001

Author(s)
Nazarov, Sergey  
Chiki, Anass  
Boudeffa, Driss  
Lashuel, Hilal A.  
Date Issued

2022-06-22

Published in
Journal Of The American Chemical Society
Volume

144

Issue

24

Start page

10723

End page

10735

Subjects

Chemistry, Multidisciplinary

•

Chemistry

•

cryo-em structure

•

wild-type

•

polyglutamine

•

aggregation

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proteins

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repeat

•

length

•

thermodynamics

•

localization

•

resonance

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

Available on Infoscience
July 4, 2022
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/188824
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