Crystal structure of a human prion protein fragment reveals a motif for oligomer formation.

J Am Chem Soc

Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, United States.

Published: July 2013

The structural transition of the prion protein from α-helical- to β-sheet-rich underlies its conversion into infectious and disease-associated isoforms. Here we describe the crystal structure of a fragment from human prion protein consisting of the disulfide-bond-linked portions of helices 2 and 3. Instead of forming a pair-of-sheets steric zipper structure characteristic of amyloid fibers, this fragment crystallized into a β-sheet-rich assembly of hexameric oligomers. This study reveals a never before observed structural motif for ordered protein aggregates and suggests a possible mechanism for self-propagation of misfolded conformations by such nonamyloid oligomers.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3766960PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja403001qDOI Listing

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