Issue 23, 2024

Non-fibril amyloid aggregation at the air/water interface: self-adaptive pathway resulting in a 2D Janus nanofilm

Abstract

The amyloid states of proteins are implicated in several neurodegenerative diseases and bioadhesion processes. However, the classical amyloid fibrillization mechanism fails to adequately explain the formation of polymorphic aggregates and their adhesion to various surfaces. Herein, we report a non-fibril amyloid aggregation pathway, with disulfide-bond-reduced lysozyme (R-Lyz) as a model protein under quasi-physiological conditions. Very different from classical fibrillization, this pathway begins with the air–water interface (AWI) accelerated oligomerization of unfolded full-length protein, resulting in unique plate-like oligomers with self-adaptive ability, which can adjust their conformations to match various interfaces such as the asymmetric AWI and amyloid-protein film surface. The pathway enables a stepwise packing of the plate-like oligomers into a 2D Janus nanofilm, exhibiting a divergent distribution of hydrophilic/hydrophobic residues on opposite sides of the nanofilm. The resulting Janus nanofilm possesses a top-level Young's modulus (8.3 ± 0.6 GPa) among amyloid-based materials and exhibits adhesive strength two times higher (145 ± 81 kPa) than that of barnacle cement. Furthermore, we found that such an interface-directed pathway exists in several amyloidogenic proteins with a similar self-adaptive 2D-aggregation process, including bovine serum albumin, insulin, fibrinogen, hemoglobin, lactoferrin, and ovalbumin. Thus, our findings on the non-fibril self-adaptive mechanism for amyloid aggregation may shed light on polymorphic amyloid assembly and their adhesions through an alternative pathway.

Graphical abstract: Non-fibril amyloid aggregation at the air/water interface: self-adaptive pathway resulting in a 2D Janus nanofilm

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Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
24 Jan 2024
Accepted
27 Apr 2024
First published
07 May 2024
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 8946-8958

Non-fibril amyloid aggregation at the air/water interface: self-adaptive pathway resulting in a 2D Janus nanofilm

H. Ren, H. Chen, Y. Kang, W. Liu, Y. Liu, F. Tao, S. Miao, Y. Zhang, Q. Liu, M. Dong, Y. Liu, B. Liu and P. Yang, Chem. Sci., 2024, 15, 8946 DOI: 10.1039/D4SC00560K

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