Structures of Pathological and Functional Amyloids and Prions, a Solid-State NMR Perspective

Asen Daskalov (1) , Nadia El Mammeri (1) , Alons Lends (1) , Jayakrishna Shenoy (1) , Gaelle Lamon (1) , Yann Fichou (1) , Ahmad Saad (1) , Denis Martinez (1) , Estelle Morvan (2) , Melanie Berbon (1) , Axelle Grélard (1) , Brice Kauffmann (2) , Mathias Ferber (3) , Benjamin Bardiaux (3) , Birgit Habenstein (1) , Sven J. Saupe (4) , Antoine Loquet (1)

1 CBMN - Chimie et Biologie des Membranes et des Nanoobjets
2 Soutien à la Recherche de l'Institut Européen de Chimie Biologique
3 Bioinformatique structurale - Structural Bioinformatics
4 IBGC - Institut de biochimie et génétique cellulaires

Infectious proteins or prions are a remarkable class of pathogens, where pathogenicity and infectious state correspond to conformational transition of a protein fold. The conformational change translates into the formation by the protein of insoluble amyloid aggregates, associated in humans with various neurodegenerative disorders and systemic protein-deposition diseases. The prion principle, however, is not limited to pathogenicity. While pathological amyloids (and prions) emerge from protein misfolding, a class of functional amyloids has been defined, consisting of amyloid-forming domains under natural selection and with diverse biological roles. Although of great importance, prion amyloid structures remain challenging for conventional structural biology techniques. Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (SSNMR) has been preferentially used to investigate these insoluble, morphologically heterogeneous aggregates with poor crystallinity. SSNMR methods have yielded a wealth of knowledge regarding the fundamentals of prion biology and have helped to solve the structures of several prion and prion-like fibrils. Here, we will review pathological and functional amyloid structures and will discuss some of the obtained structural models. We will finish the review with a perspective on integrative approaches combining solid-state NMR, electron paramagnetic resonance and cryo-electron microscopy, which can complement and extend our toolkit to structurally explore various facets of prion biology.

Mots clés: prion structure; amyloid fibril; solid-state NMR; functional amyloids; structural biology

Domaines: Biochimie [q-bio.BM]; Biophysique

Asen Daskalov, Nadia El Mammeri, Alons Lends, Jayakrishna Shenoy, Gaelle Lamon, et al.. Structures of Pathological and Functional Amyloids and Prions, a Solid-State NMR Perspective. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, 2021, 14, pp.670513. ⟨10.3389/fnmol.2021.670513⟩. ⟨pasteur-03379976⟩