Determination of the Structure and Dynamics of the Fuzzy Coat of an Amyloid Fibril of IAPP Using Cryo-Electron Microscopy.

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Authors
Faidon Brotzakis, Z 
Löhr, Thomas 
Hoff, Samuel 
Bonomi, Massimiliano  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7321-0004
Abstract

In recent years, major advances in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have enabled the routine determination of complex biomolecular structures at atomistic resolution. An open challenge for this approach, however, concerns large systems that exhibit continuous dynamics. To address this problem, we developed the metadynamic electron microscopy metainference (MEMMI) method, which incorporates metadynamics, an enhanced conformational sampling approach, into the metainference method of integrative structural biology. MEMMI enables the simultaneous determination of the structure and dynamics of large heterogeneous systems by combining cryo-EM density maps with prior information through molecular dynamics, while at the same time modeling the different sources of error. To illustrate the method, we apply it to elucidate the dynamics of an amyloid fibril of the islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP). The resulting conformational ensemble provides an accurate description of the structural variability of the disordered region of the amyloid fibril, known as fuzzy coat. The conformational ensemble also reveals that in nearly half of the structural core of this amyloid fibril, the side chains exhibit liquid-like dynamics despite the presence of the highly ordered network backbone of hydrogen bonds characteristic of the cross-β structure of amyloid fibrils.

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Keywords
Cryoelectron Microscopy, Islet Amyloid Polypeptide, Amyloid, Molecular Dynamics Simulation, Microscopy, Electron
Journal Title
Biochemistry
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0006-2960
1520-4995
Volume Title
62
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Sponsorship
Federation of European Biochemical Societies (NA)
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-20-CE45-0002)