Department of Biochemistry, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Department of Biochemistry, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Biophys J. 2022 Jul 19;121(14):2813-2825. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2022.06.007. Epub 2022 Jun 6.
Misfolding of the cellular prion protein (PrP) is associated with lethal neurodegeneration. PrP consists of a flexible tail (residues 23-123) and a globular domain (residues 124-231) whose C-terminal end is anchored to the cell membrane. The neurotoxic antibody POM1 and the innocuous antibody POM6 recognize the globular domain. Experimental evidence indicates that POM1 binding to PrP emulates the influence on PrP of the misfolded prion protein (PrP) while the binding of POM6 has the opposite biological response. Little is known about the potential interactions between flexible tail, globular domain, and the membrane. Here, we used atomistic simulations to investigate how these interactions are modulated by the binding of the Fab fragments of POM1 and POM6 to PrP and by interstitial sequence truncations to the flexible tail. The simulations show that the binding of the antibodies restricts the range of orientations of the globular domain with respect to the membrane and decreases the distance between tail and membrane. Five of the six sequence truncations influence only marginally this distance and the contact patterns between tail and globular domain. The only exception is a truncation coupled to a charge inversion mutation of four N-terminal residues, which increases the distance of the flexible tail from the membrane. The interactions of the flexible tail and globular domain are modulated differently by the two antibodies.
细胞朊病毒蛋白(PrP)的错误折叠与致命的神经退行性变有关。PrP 由一个灵活的尾部(残基 23-123)和一个球形结构域(残基 124-231)组成,其 C 端末端固定在细胞膜上。神经毒性抗体 POM1 和无害抗体 POM6 识别球形结构域。实验证据表明,POM1 与 PrP 的结合模拟了错误折叠的朊病毒蛋白(PrP)对 PrP 的影响,而 POM6 的结合则具有相反的生物学反应。对于灵活的尾巴、球形结构域和膜之间的潜在相互作用知之甚少。在这里,我们使用原子模拟来研究 Fab 片段与 PrP 结合以及柔性尾部的间质序列截断如何调节这些相互作用。模拟表明,抗体的结合限制了球形结构域相对于膜的取向范围,并减小了尾部和膜之间的距离。六个序列截断中的五个仅对该距离和尾部与球形结构域之间的接触模式产生微小影响。唯一的例外是与四个 N 端残基的电荷反转突变耦合的截断,这增加了柔性尾部与膜的距离。两个抗体对柔性尾巴和球形结构域的相互作用的调节方式不同。