Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils
Amyloid fibrils are important in diverse cellular functions, feature in many human diseases and have potential applications in nanotechnology. Here we describe methods that combine optical trapping and fluorescent imaging to characterize the forces that govern the integrity of amyloid fibrils formed...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Nature Publishing Group
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74086 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4614-251X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1307-882X https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2193-377X |
| _version_ | 1811094358237118464 |
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| author | Dong, Jijun Castro, Carlos E. Boyce, Mary Cunningham Lang, Matthew J. Lindquist, Susan |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering Dong, Jijun Castro, Carlos E. Boyce, Mary Cunningham Lang, Matthew J. Lindquist, Susan |
| author_sort | Dong, Jijun |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Amyloid fibrils are important in diverse cellular functions, feature in many human diseases and have potential applications in nanotechnology. Here we describe methods that combine optical trapping and fluorescent imaging to characterize the forces that govern the integrity of amyloid fibrils formed by a yeast prion protein. A crucial advance was to use the self-templating properties of amyloidogenic proteins to tether prion fibrils, enabling their manipulation in the optical trap. At normal pulling forces the fibrils were impervious to disruption. At much higher forces (up to 250 pN), discontinuities occurred in force-extension traces before fibril rupture. Experiments with selective amyloid-disrupting agents and mutations demonstrated that such discontinuities were caused by the unfolding of individual subdomains. Thus, our results reveal unusually strong noncovalent intermolecular contacts that maintain fibril integrity even when individual monomers partially unfold and extend fibril length. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:58:46Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/74086 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:58:46Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/740862022-09-29T17:26:18Z Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils Dong, Jijun Castro, Carlos E. Boyce, Mary Cunningham Lang, Matthew J. Lindquist, Susan Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Castro, Carlos E. Boyce, Mary Cunningham Lang, Matthew J. Lindquist, Susan Amyloid fibrils are important in diverse cellular functions, feature in many human diseases and have potential applications in nanotechnology. Here we describe methods that combine optical trapping and fluorescent imaging to characterize the forces that govern the integrity of amyloid fibrils formed by a yeast prion protein. A crucial advance was to use the self-templating properties of amyloidogenic proteins to tether prion fibrils, enabling their manipulation in the optical trap. At normal pulling forces the fibrils were impervious to disruption. At much higher forces (up to 250 pN), discontinuities occurred in force-extension traces before fibril rupture. Experiments with selective amyloid-disrupting agents and mutations demonstrated that such discontinuities were caused by the unfolding of individual subdomains. Thus, our results reveal unusually strong noncovalent intermolecular contacts that maintain fibril integrity even when individual monomers partially unfold and extend fibril length. National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant GM025874) National Science Foundation (U.S.). CAREER (Award 0643745) 2012-10-18T17:20:29Z 2012-10-18T17:20:29Z 2010-11 2010-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1545-9993 1545-9985 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74086 Dong, Jijun et al. “Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils.” Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 17.12 (2010): 1422–1430. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4614-251X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1307-882X https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2193-377X en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.1954 Nature Structural and Molecular Biology Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ application/pdf Nature Publishing Group PMC |
| spellingShingle | Dong, Jijun Castro, Carlos E. Boyce, Mary Cunningham Lang, Matthew J. Lindquist, Susan Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils |
| title | Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils |
| title_full | Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils |
| title_fullStr | Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils |
| title_full_unstemmed | Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils |
| title_short | Optical Trapping with High Forces Reveals Unexpected Behaviors of Prion Fibrils |
| title_sort | optical trapping with high forces reveals unexpected behaviors of prion fibrils |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74086 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4614-251X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1307-882X https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2193-377X |
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