Author(s)

Kentaro Noi, Aya Kitamura, Hidenori Hirai, Kunihiro Hongo, Toshihiko Sakurai, Tomohiro Mizobata, Yasushi Kawata

Department of Biomedical Science, Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Biofunction, Graduate School of Medical Science.
Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan.

The Group II chaperonin from Thermoplasma acidophilum was added to the in vitro amyloid fibrillation reaction of yeast Sup35NM protein to assess its effects. By measuring the formation of Sup35NM fibrils in real time using the fluorescent dye Thioflavin T, we found that the addition of T. acidophilum-cpn α16, α1, and β1 proteins suppressed fibril formation. Addition of a 0.1 molar-equivalent T. acidophilum-cpn α16 relative to Sup35NM prolonged the initial lag-time of fibril formation and decreased the rate of fibril extension. Addition of 1 or 3 molar-equivalents of T. acidophilum-cpn monomers also produced a similar effect. Delayed addition of these chaperonins after the initial lag phase did not suppress fibril formation. Interestingly, these effects were also observed upon adding only the apical domain segments of α and β-subunits, and we also found that deletion of the helical protrusion in the apical domain of these segments led to an abolishment of the suppression effects. A synthetic peptide whose sequence corresponded to the helical protrusion also displayed a suppression effect, which indicated that archaeal group II chaperonin binds to Sup35NM through the helical protrusion of the apical domain. These findings suggest that group II chaperonin might be actively involved in suppressing amyloid fibril formation, in addition to acting as a protein folding assistant.

Group II Chaperonin Monomer;Thermoplasma Acidophilum; Structure and Function; Suppression of Amyloid Fibril; Sup35NM Amyloid

Noi, K. , Kitamura, A. , Hirai, H. , Hongo, K. , Sakurai, T. , Mizobata, T. and Kawata, Y. (2012) Suppression of Sup35 amyloid fibril formation by group II chaperonin from Thermoplasma acidophilum. American Journal of Molecular Biology, 2, 265-275. doi: 10.4236/ajmb.2012.23028.