Sulatsky Maksim I, Belousov Mikhail V, Stepanenko Olesya V, Stepanenko Olga V, Mikhailova Ekaterina V, Fayoud Haidar, Nizhnikov Anton A, Sulatskaya Anna I
Laboratory of cell morphology, Institute of Cytology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia.
All-Russia Research Institute for Agricultural Microbiology, St. Petersburg, Russia; Faculty of Biology, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Int J Biol Macromol. 2025 Sep 6;327(Pt 2):147485. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.147485.
Growing evidence links gut microbiota to neurodegenerative diseases, yet direct molecular interactions between bacterial and host amyloid proteins remain incompletely understood. Bacterial amyloids represent an understudied yet potentially critical component of gut-brain communication in neurodegeneration. Here, we provide the first investigation of whether amyloids formed by outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of enterobacteria can modulate neurodegeneration-associated protein aggregation. We examined the effects of pre-formed amyloid fibrils from OmpC and OmpF of Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica on fibrillogenesis of α-synuclein and amyloid-β, whose pathological accumulation in brain is associated with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, respectively. Using a comprehensive array of physicochemical methods, we discovered that bacterial OMP amyloids altered the structural properties and clustering tendency of mammalian amyloids in a target-specific manner. In particular, for α-synuclein, OMP amyloids modified the irregular "fuzzy coat" surrounding the ordered β-core, increasing fibril clustering without affecting core structure, quantity, or cytotoxicity. In contrast, amyloid-β fibrils showed more extensive structural changes, with modifications to both the "fuzzy coat" and β-sheet core, accompanied by a decreased clustering tendency and significantly reduced toxicity for mammalian neuroblastoma and epithelial adenocarcinoma cell lines. Our findings demonstrate that amyloids formed from OMPs produced by Enterobacteriaceae species represent a previously unrecognized class of amyloid modulators capable of influencing pathological aggregation of mammalian proteins through intermolecular contacts. These results open a discussion on the dual role of bacterial amyloids in neurodegeneration, as they may be capable not only of promoting pathological amyloidogenesis but also of mitigating the toxic effects of host amyloid aggregates.
越来越多的证据表明肠道微生物群与神经退行性疾病有关,但细菌与宿主淀粉样蛋白之间的直接分子相互作用仍未完全明确。细菌淀粉样蛋白是神经退行性变中肠道与大脑交流中一个研究不足但可能至关重要的组成部分。在此,我们首次研究了肠道杆菌外膜蛋白(OMP)形成的淀粉样蛋白是否能调节与神经退行性变相关的蛋白质聚集。我们检测了来自大肠杆菌和肠炎沙门氏菌的OmpC和OmpF预先形成的淀粉样纤维对α-突触核蛋白和淀粉样β蛋白纤维形成的影响,它们在大脑中的病理性积累分别与帕金森病和阿尔茨海默病相关。通过一系列综合的物理化学方法,我们发现细菌OMP淀粉样蛋白以靶标特异性方式改变了哺乳动物淀粉样蛋白的结构特性和聚集趋势。特别是对于α-突触核蛋白,OMP淀粉样蛋白修饰了有序β-核心周围不规则的“模糊外套”,增加了纤维聚集,而不影响核心结构、数量或细胞毒性。相比之下,淀粉样β蛋白纤维显示出更广泛的结构变化,“模糊外套”和β-折叠核心均有修饰,同时聚集趋势降低,对哺乳动物神经母细胞瘤和上皮腺癌细胞系的毒性显著降低。我们的研究结果表明,肠杆菌科细菌产生的OMP形成的淀粉样蛋白代表了一类以前未被认识的淀粉样蛋白调节剂,能够通过分子间接触影响哺乳动物蛋白质的病理性聚集。这些结果引发了关于细菌淀粉样蛋白在神经退行性变中的双重作用的讨论,因为它们可能不仅能够促进病理性淀粉样蛋白生成,还能够减轻宿主淀粉样蛋白聚集体的毒性作用。