@article {370, title = {Solid-state NMR studies of the secondary structure of a mutant prion protein fragment of 55 residues that induces neurodegeneration}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {98}, year = {2001}, note = {P Natl Acad Sci USA476PCTimes Cited:51Cited References Count:26}, month = {Sep 25}, pages = {11686-11690}, abstract = {
The secondary structure of a 55-residue fragment of the mouse prion protein, MoPrP(89-143), was studied in randomly aggregated (dried from water) and fibrillar (precipitated from water/ acetonitrile) forms by C-13 solid-state NMR. Recent studies have shown that the fibrillar form of the P101L mutant of MoPrP(89-143) is capable of inducing prion disease in transgenic mice, whereas unaggregated or randomly aggregated samples do not provoke disease. Through analysis of C-13 chemical shifts, we have determined that both wild-type and mutant sequence MoPrP(89-143) form a mixture of beta -sheet and alpha -helical conformations in the randomly aggregated state although the beta -sheet content in MoPrP(89-143, P101L) is significantly higher than in the wild-type peptide. In a fibrillar state, MoPrP(89-143, P101L) is completely converted into beta -sheet, suggesting that the formation of a specific beta -sheet structure may be required for the peptide to induce disease. Studies of an analogous peptide from Syrian hamster PrP verify that sequence alterations in residues 101-117 affect the conformation of aggregated forms of the peptides.
}, keywords = {diseases}, isbn = {0027-8424}, doi = {Doi 10.1073/Pnas.201404298}, url = {