Mutations within the β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) sequence that cause early onset familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD) have been shown to promote Aβ aggregation. How these FAD-related mutants increase the aggregative ability of Aβ is not fully understood. Here, we characterized the effect of the Arctic variant (E22G) on the conformational stability of Aβ using various forms of spectroscopy and kinetic analyses, including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The E22G mutation in the Arctic variant reduced the α-helical propensity and conformational stability of Aβ on residues 15-25. This mutation also caused an increase in both α-helix-to-β-strand conversion and fibril nucleation rates. Our results suggest that the α-helical propensity of residues 15-25 may play a determinant role in the aggregative ability of Aβ. This may provide a structural basis for understanding the molecular mechanism of Aβ aggregation.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNA molecules participating in posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression. There have been many efforts to discover miRNA precursors (pre-miRNAs) over the years. Recently, ab initio approaches obtain more attention because that they can discover species-specific pre-miRNAs. Most ab initio approaches proposed novel features to characterize RNA molecules. However, there were fewer discussions on the associated classification mechanism in a miRNA predictor.

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Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of neurodegenerative disease. Beta-amyloid peptides (Aβ) are responsible for neuronal death both in vitro and in vivo. Previously, L17 and F19 residues were identified as playing key roles in the stabilization of the Aβ40 conformation and in the reduction of its neurotoxicity. In this study, the effects of L17A/F19A mutations on the neurotoxicity of Aβ genetic mutant Arctic-type Aβ40(E22G) were tested. The results showed that compared to Aβ40(E22G), Aβ40(L17A/F19A/E22G) reduced the rate of conformation conversion, aggregation, and cytotoxicity, suggesting that L17 and F19 are critical residues responsible for conformational changes which may trigger the neurotoxic cascade of Aβ. Aβ40(L17A/F19A/E22G) also had decreased damage due to reactive oxygen species. The results are consistent with the discordant helix hypothesis, and confirm that residues 17–25 are in the discordant helix region. Compared to Aβ40(L17A/F19A), reduction in aggregation of Aβ40(L17A/F19A/E22G) was less significantly decreased. This observation provides an explanation based on the discordant helix hypothesis that the mutation of E22 to G22 of Aβ40(E22G) alters the propensity of the discordant helix. Arctic-type Aβ40(E22G) aggregates more severely than wild-type Aβ40, with a consequential increase in toxicity.

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