Decreased Interactions between Calmodulin and a Mutant Huntingtin Model Might Reduce the Cytotoxic Level of Intracellular Ca²⁺: A Molecular Dynamics Study.

ABSTRACT: Mutant huntingtin (m-HTT) proteins and calmodulin (CaM) co-localize in the cerebral cortex with significant effects on the intracellular calcium levels by altering the specific calcium-mediated signals. Furthermore, the mutant huntingtin proteins show great affinity for CaM that can lead to a further stabilization of the mutant huntingtin aggregates. In this context, the present study focuses on describing the interactions between CaM and two huntingtin mutants from a biophysical point of view, by using classical Molecular Dynamics techniques. The huntingtin models consist of a wild-type structure, one mutant with 45 glutamine residues and the second mutant with nine additional key-point mutations from glutamine residues into proline residues (9P(EM) model). Our docking scores and binding

SUBMITTER: Moldovean SN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8396531 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature