Detection and characterization of tilted peptides in amyloid proteins

The study of amyloidogenic proteins is of interest in biochemistry because these proteins undergo conformational changes and aggregation. Both processes are largely implicated in several diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease. These phenomena are not completely understood, either at a structural or energetical point of view. Tilted peptides are short protein fragment (11 to 19 residues) that adopt a tilted orientation when inserted into biological membranes and destabilise them. Recently, tilted peptides have been detected in two amyloidogenic proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases; the amyloid  peptide responsible for Alzheimer’s disease, and the PrP protein that causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease. Tilted peptides could be responsible for the neurotoxic effects of these proteins. Due to their destabilising properties, they could interact directly with the membrane leading to cell death. Tilted peptides could also be involved in the transconformational process of the proteins. The aim of this work is to detect tilted fragments in other amyloidogenic proteins by molecular modelling and to study some of these peptides experimentally to evidence their lipid destabilizing properties, their structure and their toxicity. Twenty-four tilted peptides from 18 different proteins have been detected among 53 amyloidogenic proteins and 7 peptides were tested experimentally. The results support the hypothesis that some tilted peptides could be involved in transconformational processes and/or cytotoxicity related to amyloidogenic proteins.