Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0030567 (Parkinson's disease)
 63,064 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We report here the use of protonless NMR spectroscopy to extract structural information under biologically relevant conditions when conventional proton-detection NMR spectroscopy fails due to the loss of labile proton resonances. By direct (13)C detection, correlations between nonlabile nuclei of a given biomolecule can be determined with high resolution, which becomes particularly useful when the system of interests is sensitive to solvent exchange at elevated temperatures, such as intrinsically disordered proteins. Human alpha-synuclein, which is associated with Parkinson's disease, is used as a model system to illustrate the usefulness of protonless NMR spectroscopy in recovering hitherto missing spectral information.
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PMID:Use of protonless NMR spectroscopy to alleviate the loss of information resulting from exchange-broadening. 1943 43

Alpha-synuclein (alphaS) is the primary component of Lewy bodies, the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's Disease. Aggregation of alphaS is thought to proceed from a primarily disordered state with nascent secondary structure through intermediate conformations to oligomeric forms and finally to mature amyloid fibrils. Low pH conditions lead to conformational changes associated with increased alphaS fibril formation. Here we characterize these structural and dynamic changes using solution state NMR measurements of secondary chemical shifts, relaxation parameters, residual dipolar couplings, and paramagnetic relaxation enhancement. We find that the neutralization of negatively charged side-chains eliminates electrostatic repulsion in the C-terminal tail of alphaS and leads to a collapse of this region at low pH. Hydrophobic contacts between the compact C-terminal tail and the NAC (non-amyloid-beta component) region are maintained and may lead to the formation of a globular domain. Transient long-range contacts between the C-terminus of the protein and regions N-terminal to the NAC region are also preserved. Thus, the release of long-range contacts does not play a role in the increased aggregation of alphaS at low pH, which we instead attribute to the increased hydrophobicity of the protein.
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PMID:Charge neutralization and collapse of the C-terminal tail of alpha-synuclein at low pH. 1947 65

'In dopaminergic neurons, alpha-synuclein (alphaS) partitions between a disordered cytosolic state and a lipid-bound state. Binding of alphaS to membrane phospholipids is implicated in its functional role in synaptic regulation, but also impacts fibril formation associated with Parkinson's disease. We describe here a solution NMR study in which alphaS is added to small unilamellar vesicles of a composition mimicking synaptic vesicles; the results provide evidence for multiple distinct phospholipid-binding modes of alphaS. Exchange between the free state and the lipid-bound alphaS state, and between different bound states is slow on the NMR timescale, being in the range of 1-10 s(-1). Partitioning of the binding modes is dependent on lipid/alphaS stoichiometry, and tight binding with slow-exchange kinetics is observed at stoichiometries as low as 2:1. In all lipid-bound states, a segment of residues starting at the N-terminus of alphaS adopts an alpha-helical conformation, while succeeding residues retain the characteristics of a random coil. The 40 C-terminal residues remain dynamically disordered, even at high-lipid concentrations, but can also bind to lipids to an extent that appears to be determined by the fraction of cis X-Pro peptide bonds in this region. While lipid-bound alphaS exhibits dynamic properties that preclude its direct observation by NMR, its exchange with the NMR-visible free form allows for its indirect characterization. Rapid amide-amide nuclear Overhauser enhancement buildup points to a large alpha-helical conformation, and a distinct increase in fluorescence anisotropy attributed to Tyr39 indicates an ordered environment for this "dark state." Titration of alphaS with increasing amounts of lipids suggests that the binding mode under high-lipid conditions remains qualitatively similar to that in the low-lipid case. The NMR data appear incompatible with the commonly assumed model where alphaS lies in an alpha-helical conformation on the membrane surface and instead suggest that considerable remodeling of the vesicles is induced by alphaS.
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PMID:Multiple tight phospholipid-binding modes of alpha-synuclein revealed by solution NMR spectroscopy. 1948 Oct 95

The relation of alpha-synuclein (alphaS) aggregation to Parkinson's disease has long been recognized, but the pathogenic species and its molecular properties have yet to be identified. To obtain insight into the properties of alphaS in an aggregation-prone state, we studied the structural properties of alphaS at acidic pH using NMR spectroscopy and computation. NMR demonstrated that alphaS remains natively unfolded at lower pH, but secondary structure propensities were changed in proximity to acidic residues. The ensemble of conformations of alphaS at acidic pH is characterized by a rigidification and compaction of the Asp and Glu-rich C-terminal region, an increased probability for proximity between the NAC-region and the C-terminal region and a lower probability for interactions between the N- and C-terminal regions.
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PMID:Structural characterization of alpha-synuclein in an aggregation prone state. 1955 27

alpha-Synuclein is an intrinsically disordered protein that appears in aggregated forms in the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease. The conversion from monomer to aggregate is complex, and aggregation rates are sensitive to changes in amino acid sequence and environmental conditions. It has previously been observed that alpha-synuclein aggregates faster at low pH than at neutral pH. Here, we combine NMR spectroscopy and molecular simulations to characterize alpha-synuclein conformational ensembles at both neutral and low pH in order to understand how the altered charge distribution at low pH changes the structural properties of these ensembles and leads to an increase in aggregation rate. The N-terminus, which has a small positive charge at neutral pH due to a balance of positively and negatively charged amino acid residues, is very positively charged at low pH. Conversely, the acidic C-terminus is highly negatively charged at neutral pH and becomes essentially neutral and hydrophobic at low pH. Our NMR experiments and replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations indicate that there is a significant structural reorganization within the low-pH ensemble relative to that at neutral pH in terms of long-range contacts, hydrodynamic radius, and the amount of heterogeneity within the conformational ensembles. At neutral pH, there is a very heterogeneous ensemble with transient contacts between the N-terminus and the non-amyloid beta component (NAC); however, at low pH, there is a more homogeneous ensemble that exhibits strong contacts between the NAC and the C-terminus. At both pH values, transient contacts between the N- and C-termini are observed, the NAC region shows similar exposure to solvent, and the entire protein shows similar propensities to secondary structure. Based on the comparison of the neutral- and low-pH conformational ensembles, we propose that exposure of the NAC region to solvent and the secondary-structure propensity are not factors that account for differences in propensity to aggregate in this context. Instead, the comparison of the neutral- and low-pH ensembles suggests that the change in long-range interactions between the low- and neutral-pH ensembles, the compaction of the C-terminal region at low pH, and the uneven distribution of charges across the sequence are key to faster aggregation.
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PMID:Structural reorganization of alpha-synuclein at low pH observed by NMR and REMD simulations. 1957 20

The aggregation of numerous peptides or proteins has been linked to the onset of disease, including Abeta (amyloid beta-peptide) in AD (Alzheimer's disease), asyn (alpha-synuclein) in Parkinson's disease and amylin in Type 2 diabetes. Diverse amyloidogenic proteins can often be cut down to an SRE (self-recognition element) of as few as five residues that retains the ability to aggregate. SREs can be used as a starting point for aggregation inhibitors. In particular, N-methylated SREs can bind to a target on one side, but have hydrogen-bonding blocked on their methylated face, interfering with further assembly. We applied this strategy to develop Abeta toxicity inhibitors. Our compounds, and a range of compounds from the literature, were compared under the same conditions, using biophysical and toxicity assays. Two N-methylated D-peptide inhibitors with unnatural side chains were the most effective and can reverse Abeta-induced inhibition of LTP (long-term potentiation) at concentrations as low as 10 nM. An SRE in asyn (VAQKTV) was identified using solid-state NMR. When VAQKTV was N-methylated, it was able to disrupt asyn aggregation. N-methylated derivatives of the SRE of amylin are also able to inhibit amylin aggregation.
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PMID:Inhibitors of protein aggregation and toxicity. 1961 77

The process of drug metabolite identification is extremely important for drug efficacy, safety and pharmacokinetics. The traditional method usually involves using a drug with a radioactive labeled nuclei and/or isolating major drug metabolites by HPLC before applying MS and NMR analyses, which requires trained specialists to handle the radioactive compounds and is time consuming for offline-HPLC separation. A method using mass spectrometry-based metabonomics combined with multivariate statistical analysis was applied to rapidly identify metabolite profiles of tolcapone, a catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitor for Parkinson's disease treatment. The tolcapone metabolites were identified based on the accurate mass measurement (<3 ppm) and MS(2) mass spectrum. In total, 16 tolcapone metabolites were detected and identified, 6 of which have not been reported previously. Our results indicate that the method has the capability to accelerate the process of identifying drug metabolites, ultimately reduce drug development costs, and make the process safer without requiring a drug with radioactive nuclei. Most importantly, the assay can detect the major and minor drug metabolites in a global view. Furthermore, since tolcapone has been associated with idiosyncratic drug induced liver toxicity the rapid detection of tolcapone-related metabolites can provide mechanistic toxicity information related to drug metabolism and the formation of reactive drug metabolites.
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PMID:Identification of metabolite profiles of the catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitor tolcapone in rat urine using LC/MS-based metabonomics analysis. 1961 53

Parkinson's disease is a debilitating movement disorder characterized by altered levels of alpha(6)beta(2) * ( * indicates the possible presence of additional subunits) nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) localized on presynaptic striatal catecholaminergic neurons. alpha-Conotoxin MII (alpha-CTx MII) is a highly useful ligand to probe alpha(6)beta(2) nAChRs structure and function, but it does not discriminate among closely related alpha(6) * nAChR subtypes. Modification of the alpha-CTx MII primary sequence led to the identification of alpha-CTx MII[E11A], an analog with 500-5300-fold discrimination between alpha(6) * subtypes found in both human and non-human primates. alpha-CTx MII[E11A] binds most strongly (femtomolar dissociation constant) to the high affinity alpha(6) nAChR, a subtype that is selectively lost in Parkinson's disease. Here, we present the three-dimensional solution structure for alpha-CTx MII[E11A] as determined by two-dimensional (1)H NMR spectroscopy to 0.13+/-0.09A backbone and 0.45+/-0.08A heavy atom root-mean-square deviation from mean structure. Structural comparisons suggest that the increased hydrophobic area of alpha-CTx MII[E11A] relative to other members of the alpha-CTx family may be responsible for its exceptionally high affinity for alpha6alpha4beta2 * nAChR as well as discrimination between alpha(6)beta(2) and alpha(3)beta(2) containing nAChRs. This finding may enable the rational design of novel peptide analogs that demonstrate enhanced specificity for alpha(6) * nAChR subunit interfaces and provide a means to better understand nAChR structural determinants that modulate brain dopamine levels and the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease.
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PMID:Structural basis for alpha-conotoxin potency and selectivity. 1962 99

Fibrils of the intrinsically disordered protein alpha-synuclein are hallmarks of Parkinson's disease. The fluorescent dye thioflavin T is often used to characterize fibrillation, but this assay may not provide quantitative information about structure and mechanism. To gain such information, we incorporated the 19F-labeled amino acid, 3-fluorotyrosine, into recombinant human alpha-synuclein at its endogenous tyrosine residues. Tyrosine 39 is in the positively charged N-terminal region of this 140-residue protein. The other three tyrosines, 125, 133, and 136, are near the C-terminus. 19F nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was used to study several properties of labeled alpha-synuclein, including its conformation, conformational changes induced by urea, spermine, and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), its interaction with SDS micelles, and the kinetics of fibril formation. The results show that the tyrosines are in disordered regions but that there is some structure near position 39 that is disrupted by urea. SDS binding alters the conformation near position 39, but the C-terminal tyrosines are disordered under all conditions. The NMR data also indicate that SDS-micelle-bound alpha-synuclein and the free protein exchange on the 10 ms time scale. Studies of fibrillation show the utility of 19F-labeled NMR. The data indicate that fibrillation is not accompanied by the formation of large quantities of low molecular weight intermediates. Although dye binding and 19F NMR data show that 1 mM SDS and 1 mM spermine accelerate aggregation compared to buffer alone, only the NMR data indicate that the species formed in SDS are smaller than those formed in buffer or buffer plus spermine. We conclude that 19F NMR spectroscopy is useful for obtaining residue-level, quantitative information about the structure, binding, and aggregation of alpha-synuclein.
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PMID:19F NMR studies of alpha-synuclein conformation and fibrillation. 1965 84

Nanobodies are single chain antibodies that are uniquely produced in Camelidae, e.g. camels and llamas. They have the desirable features of small sizes (Mw < 14 kDa) and high affinities against antigens (Kd approximately nM), making them ideal as structural probes for biomedically relevant motifs both in vitro and in vivo. We have previously shown that nanobody binding to amyloidogenic human lysozyme variants can effectively inhibit their aggregation, the process that is at the origin of systemic amyloid disease. Here we report the NMR assignments of a new nanobody, termed NbSyn2, which recognises the C-terminus of the intrinsically disordered protein, human alpha-synuclein (aS), whose aberrant self-association is implicated in Parkinson's disease.
Biomol NMR Assign 2009 Dec
PMID:(1)H, (13)C and (15)N assignments of a camelid nanobody directed against human alpha-synuclein. 1976 86


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