UMMS Affiliation
Department of Neurology; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Publication Date
2015-06-30
Document Type
Article
Subjects
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Cell Line; Crystallography, X-Ray; Humans; *Mutation; Neurons; Profilins; Protein Conformation; Protein Folding
Disciplines
Biochemistry | Biophysics | Computational Biology | Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutics | Medicinal-Pharmaceutical Chemistry | Molecular Biology | Nervous System Diseases | Structural Biology
Abstract
Mutations in profilin 1 (PFN1) are associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); however, the pathological mechanism of PFN1 in this fatal disease is unknown. We demonstrate that ALS-linked mutations severely destabilize the native conformation of PFN1 in vitro and cause accelerated turnover of the PFN1 protein in cells. This mutation-induced destabilization can account for the high propensity of ALS-linked variants to aggregate and also provides rationale for their reported loss-of-function phenotypes in cell-based assays. The source of this destabilization is illuminated by the X-ray crystal structures of several PFN1 proteins, revealing an expanded cavity near the protein core of the destabilized M114T variant. In contrast, the E117G mutation only modestly perturbs the structure and stability of PFN1, an observation that reconciles the occurrence of this mutation in the control population. These findings suggest that a destabilized form of PFN1 underlies PFN1-mediated ALS pathogenesis.
Keywords
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, profilin 1, protein stability, X-ray crystallography, protein misfolding
Rights and Permissions
Publisher PDF posted as allowed by the publisher's author rights policy at http://www.pnas.org/site/aboutpnas/authorfaq.xhtml.
DOI of Published Version
10.1073/pnas.1424108112
Source
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Jun 30;112(26):7984-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1424108112. Epub 2015 Jun 8. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Related Resources
PubMed ID
26056300
Repository Citation
Boopathy, Sivakumar; Silvas, Tania V.; Tischbein, Maeve; Jansen, Silvia; Shandilya, Shivender; Zitzewitz, Jill A.; Landers, John E.; Goode, Bruce L.; Schiffer, Celia A.; and Bosco, Daryl A., "Structural basis for mutation-induced destabilization of profilin 1 in ALS" (2015). Schiffer Lab Publications. 7.
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/schiffer/7
Included in
Biochemistry Commons, Biophysics Commons, Computational Biology Commons, Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutics Commons, Medicinal-Pharmaceutical Chemistry Commons, Molecular Biology Commons, Nervous System Diseases Commons, Structural Biology Commons