Fibril structure of human islet amyloid polypeptide.

ABSTRACT: Misfolding and amyloid fibril formation by human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) are thought to be important in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes, but the structures of the misfolded forms remain poorly understood. Here we developed an approach that combines site-directed spin labeling with continuous wave and pulsed EPR to investigate local secondary structure and to determine the relative orientation of the secondary structure elements with respect to each other. These data indicated that individual hIAPP molecules take up a hairpin fold within the fibril. This fold contains two β-strands that are much farther apart than expected from previous models. Atomistic structural models were obtained using computational refinement with EPR data as constraints. The resulting family of structu

SUBMITTER: Bedrood S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3285303 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature