Molecular and Structural Biophysics Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, 793022, India.
ACS Chem Neurosci. 2020 May 20;11(10):1376-1378. doi: 10.1021/acschemneuro.0c00216. Epub 2020 May 1.
Parkinson's disease is associated with aggregation of pathological α-synuclein (αSyn) proteins. The central hydrophobic region of αSyn, called NAC, encodes the segment that is crucial and sufficient for the toxic aggregation of αSyn. However, if any other region, including the NAC flanking region, modulates αSyn, aggregation is still unknown. A master-regulator sequence motif is now identified that is critical to controlling the aggregation of the αSyn NAC region. Interestingly, this region was also found to be important for membrane vesicle fusion. This master-regulator region could be targeted to prevent αSyn aggregation. The results reveal several unanswered questions about the αSyn aggregation mechanism.
帕金森病与病理性α-突触核蛋白（αSyn）的聚集有关。αSyn 的中心疏水区，称为 NAC，编码对 αSyn 毒性聚集至关重要且充分的片段。然而，如果包括 NAC 侧翼区域在内的任何其他区域调节 αSyn，聚集仍然未知。现在已经确定了一个主控调节序列基序，对于控制 αSyn NAC 区域的聚集至关重要。有趣的是，该区域对于膜囊泡融合也很重要。这个主控调节区域可以作为靶点来防止 αSyn 聚集。研究结果揭示了关于 αSyn 聚集机制的几个未解答的问题。
