| 1. |
- Scheidt, Tom, et al.
(författare)
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Secondary nucleation and elongation occur at different sites on Alzheimer's amyloid-b aggregates
- 2019
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Ingår i: Science Advances. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 2375-2548. ; 5:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aggregates of the Ab peptide associated with Alzheimer's disease are able to both grow in size aswell as generate, through secondary nucleation, new small oligomeric species, that are major cytotoxins associated with neuronal death. Despite the importance of these amyloid fibril-dependent processes, their structural and molecular underpinnings have remained challenging to elucidate. Here, we consider two molecular chaperones: The Brichos domain, which suppresses specifically secondary nucleation processes, and clusterin which our results show is capable of inhibiting, specifically, the elongation of Ab fibrils at remarkably low substoichiometric ratios. Microfluidic diffusional sizing measurements demonstrate that this inhibition originates from interactions of clusterin with fibril ends with high affinity. Kinetic experiments in the presence of both molecular chaperones reveal that their inhibitory effects are additive and noncooperative, thereby indicating that the reactive sites associated with the formation of new aggregates and the growth of existing aggregates are distinct.
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| 2. |
- Stadler, R., et al.
(författare)
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Long-term survival benefit after adjuvant treatment of cutaneous melanoma with dacarbazine and low dose natural interferon alpha: A controlled, randomised multicentre trial
- 2006
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Ingår i: Acta Oncol. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0284-186X. ; 45:4, s. 389-99
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In a prospective, controlled, randomised, multicentre study 252 patients with totally resected cutaneous melanoma (248 in stage II-III and 4 in stage IV) were either treated with two doses of dacarbazine (DTIC) followed by a 6-month treatment with 3 MU thrice weekly of highly purified natural interferon-alpha (n = 128; arm A) or received no adjuvant treatment (n = 124; arm B). Treatment was well tolerated. After a median follow-up of 8.5 years ITT analysis showed that the difference in survival was statistically significant with respect to melanoma-related deaths (HR = 0.65, CI = 0.46-0.97, p = 0.022) and close to significance with respect to overall survival (HR 0.71, CI 0.49-1.00, p = 0.052). The risk reduction of melanoma-associated death, calculated by Cox proportional hazards modelling, after adjusting for identified predictive variables, was almost 50% (p = 0.002). The overall efficacy of the treatment appeared to be mainly attributable to effects observed in patients with deep and/or metastasizing tumours (HR 0.60, CI 0.40-0.90, p = 0.013).
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| 3. |
- Claesson, Per M., et al.
(författare)
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Bottle-brush polymers : Adsorption at surfaces and interactions with surfactants
- 2010
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Ingår i: Advances in Colloid and Interface Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0001-8686 .- 1873-3727. ; 155:1-2, s. 50-57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Solution and adsorption properties of both charged and uncharged bottle-brush polymers have been investigated. The solution conformation and interactions in solution have been investigated by small-angle scattering techniques. The association of the bottle-brush polymers with anionic surfactants has also been studied. Surfactant binding isotherm measurements, NMR, surface tension measurements, as well as SAXS, SANS and light scattering techniques were utilized for understanding the association behaviour in bulk solutions. The adsorption of the bottle-brush polymers onto oppositely charged surfaces has been explored using a battery of techniques, including reflectometry, ellipsometry, quartz crystal microbalance, and neutron reflectivity. The combination of these techniques allowed determination of adsorbed mass, layer thickness, water content, and structural changes occurring during layer formation. The adsorption onto mica was found to be very different to that on silica, and an explanation for this was sought by employing a lattice mean-field theory. The model was able to reproduce a number of salient experimental features characterizing the adsorption of the bottle-brush polymers over a wide range of compositions, spanning from uncharged bottle-brushes to linear polyelectrolytes. This allowed us to shed light on the importance of electrostatic surface properties and non-electrostatic surface-polymer affinity for the adsorption. The interactions between bottle-brush polymers and anionic surfactants in adsorbed layers have also been elucidated using ellipsometry, neutron reflectivity and surface force measurements.
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| 4. |
- Padayachee, Eden R., 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Cerebrospinal fluid-induced retardation of amyloid beta aggregation correlates with Alzheimer's disease and the APOE epsilon 4 allele
- 2016
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Ingår i: Brain Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-8993. ; 1651, s. 11-16
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Misfolding and aggregation of amyloid beta (A beta) are key features of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis, but the molecular events controlling this process are not known in detail. In vivo, A beta aggregation and plaque formation occur in the interstitial fluid of the brain extracellular matrix. This fluid communicates freely with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Here, we examined the effect of human CSF on A beta aggregation kinetics in relation to AD diagnosis and carrier status of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) epsilon 4 allele, the main genetic risk factor for sporadic AD. The aggregation of A beta was inhibited in the presence of CSF and, surprisingly, the effect was more pronounced in APOE epsilon 4 carriers. However, by fractionation of CSF using size exclusion chromatography, it became evident that it was not the ApoE protein itself that conveyed the inhibition, since the retarding species eluted at lower volume, corresponding to a much higher molecular weight, than ApoE monomers. Cholesterol quantification and immunoblotting identified high-density lipoprotein particles in the retarding fractions, indicating that such particles may be responsible for the inhibition. These results add information to the yet unresolved puzzle on how the risk factor of APOE epsilon 4 functions in AD pathogenesis. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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| 5. |
- Padayachee, E. R., et al.
(författare)
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Cerebrospinal fluid-induced retardation of amyloid β aggregation correlates with Alzheimer's disease and the APOE ε4 allele
- 2016
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Ingår i: Brain Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-8993. ; 1651, s. 11-16
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Misfolding and aggregation of amyloid β (Aβ) are key features of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis, but the molecular events controlling this process are not known in detail. In vivo, Aβ aggregation and plaque formation occur in the interstitial fluid of the brain extracellular matrix. This fluid communicates freely with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Here, we examined the effect of human CSF on Aβ aggregation kinetics in relation to AD diagnosis and carrier status of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele, the main genetic risk factor for sporadic AD. The aggregation of Aβ was inhibited in the presence of CSF and, surprisingly, the effect was more pronounced in APOE ε4 carriers. However, by fractionation of CSF using size exclusion chromatography, it became evident that it was not the ApoE protein itself that conveyed the inhibition, since the retarding species eluted at lower volume, corresponding to a much higher molecular weight, than ApoE monomers. Cholesterol quantification and immunoblotting identified high-density lipoprotein particles in the retarding fractions, indicating that such particles may be responsible for the inhibition. These results add information to the yet unresolved puzzle on how the risk factor of APOE ε4 functions in AD pathogenesis.
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| 6. |
- Angelescu, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Monte Carlo simulations of polyelectrolytes inside viral capsids
- 2006
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Ingår i: Physical Review E (Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics). - 1539-3755. ; 73:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Structural features of polyelectrolytes as single-stranded RNA or double-stranded DNA confined inside viral capsids and the thermodynamics of the encapsidation of the polyelectrolyte into the viral capsid have been examined for various polyelectrolyte lengths by using a coarse-grained model solved by Monte Carlo simulations. The capsid was modeled as a spherical shell with embedded charges and the genome as a linear jointed chain of oppositely charged beads, and their sizes corresponded to those of a scaled-down T=3 virus. Counterions were explicitly included, but no salt was added. The encapisdated chain was found to be predominantly located at the inner capsid surface, in a disordered manner for flexible chains and in a spool-like structure for stiff chains. The distribution of the small ions was strongly dependent on the polyelectrolyte-capsid charge ratio. The encapsidation enthalpy was negative and its magnitude decreased with increasing polyelectrolyte length, whereas the encapsidation entropy displayed a maximum when the capsid and polyelectrolyte had equal absolute charge. The encapsidation process remained thermodynamically favorable for genome charges ca. 3.5 times the capsid charge. The chain stiffness had only a relatively weak effect on the thermodynamics of the encapsidation.
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| 7. |
- Angelescu, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Structural transitions of encapsidated polyelectrolytes.
- 2008
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Ingår i: European Physical Journal E. Soft Matter. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1292-8941 .- 1292-895X. ; 25:3, s. 323-334
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Conformations and structural transitions of polyelectrolytes strictly confined onto a spherical 2D surface have been investigated by scaling descriptions based on physical arguments concerning polyelectrolyte adsorption onto planar surface and liquid crystals as well as by Monte Carlo simulations using a bead-spring model with short-range and electrostatic repulsions. In case of the electrostatic screened regime, a disordered-ordered (spiral) transition at increasing persistence length of the chain was found. It was predicted that the transition occurred when the persistence length is comparable with the mean spacing between adjacent strands of the ordered chain. The presence of a non-screened electrostatic repulsion led to a more complex behavior with i) a re-entrant order-disorder transition and ii) a tennis ball texture as an additional smectic/nematic structure. The various competing structures given by the theory were recovered by the Monte Carlo simulations, which also indicated that the tennis ball texture was favored over the spiral structure by the long-range interactions for semi-flexible chains.
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| 8. |
- Båth, Petra, 1988, et al.
(författare)
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Lipidic cubic phase serial femtosecond crystallography structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre
- 2022
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Ingår i: Acta Crystallographica Section D-Structural Biology. - : International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). - 2059-7983. ; 78, s. 698-708
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Serial crystallography is a rapidly growing method that can yield structural insights from microcrystals that were previously considered to be too small to be useful in conventional X-ray crystallography. Here, conditions for growing microcrystals of the photosynthetic reaction centre of Blastochloris viridis within a lipidic cubic phase (LCP) crystallization matrix that employ a seeding protocol utilizing detergent-grown crystals with a different crystal packing are described. LCP microcrystals diffracted to 2.25 angstrom resolution when exposed to XFEL radiation, which is an improvement of 0.15 angstrom over previous microcrystal forms. Ubiquinone was incorporated into the LCP crystallization media and the resulting electron density within the mobile Q(B) pocket is comparable to that of other cofactors within the structure. As such, LCP microcrystallization conditions will facilitate time-resolved diffraction studies of electron-transfer reactions to the mobile quinone, potentially allowing the observation of structural changes associated with the two electron-transfer reactions leading to complete reduction of the ubiquinone ligand.
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| 9. |
- Castaneda-Priego, R., et al.
(författare)
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On the calculation of the structure of charge-stabilized colloidal dispersions using density-dependent potentials
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. - : IOP Publishing. - 1361-648X .- 0953-8984. ; 24:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The structure of charge-stabilized colloidal dispersions has been studied through a one-component model using a Yukawa potential with density-dependent parameters examined with integral equation theory and Monte Carlo simulations. Partial thermodynamic consistency was guaranteed by considering the osmotic pressure of the dispersion from the approximate mean-field renormalized jellium and Poisson-Boltzmann cell models. The colloidal structures could be accurately described by the Ornstein-Zernike equation with the Rogers-Young closure by using the osmotic pressure from the renormalized jellium model. Although we explicitly show that the correct effective pair-potential obtained from the inverse Monte Carlo method deviates from the Yukawa shape, the osmotic pressure constraint allows us to have a good description of the colloidal structure without losing information on the system thermodynamics. Our findings are corroborated by primitive model simulations of salt-free colloidal dispersions.
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| 10. |
- Cataldi, Rodrigo, et al.
(författare)
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A dopamine metabolite stabilizes neurotoxic amyloid-β oligomers
- 2021
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Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3642. ; 4:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aberrant soluble oligomers formed by the amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) are major pathogenic agents in the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. A variety of biomolecules can influence the formation of these oligomers in the brain, although their mechanisms of action are still largely unknown. Here, we studied the effects on Aβ aggregation of DOPAL, a reactive catecholaldehyde intermediate of dopamine metabolism. We found that DOPAL is able to stabilize Aβ oligomeric species, including dimers and trimers, that exert toxic effects on human neuroblastoma cells, in particular increasing cytosolic calcium levels and promoting the generation of reactive oxygen species. These results reveal an interplay between Aβ aggregation and key biochemical processes regulating cellular homeostasis in the brain.
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