A resorcinarene for inhibition of Aβ fibrillation

July 28, 2017

Title

A resorcinarene for inhibition of Aβ fibrillation

Author

Xu Han, Jiyong Park, Wei Wu, Andres Malagon, Lingyu Wang, Edgar Vargas, Athula Wikramanayake, K. N. Houk, Roger M. Leblanc

Year

2017

Journal

Chemical Science

Abstract

Amyloid-β peptides (Aβ) fibrillation is the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, it has been challenging to discover potent agents in order to inhibit Aβ fibrillation. Herein, we demonstrated the effect of resorcinarene on inhibiting Aβ fibrillation in vitro via experimental and computational methods. Aβ were incubated with different concentrations of resorcinarene so as to monitor the kinetics by using thioflavin T binding assay. The results, which were further confirmed by far-UV CD spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy, strongly indicated that the higher concentration of resorcinarene, the more effective the inhibition of Aβ fibrillation. A cytotoxicity study showed that when sea urchin embryos were exposed to the resorcinarene, the majority survived due to the resorcinarene low toxicity. In addition, when the resorcinarene was added, the formation of toxic Aβ 42 species was delayed. Computational studies of Aβ fibrillation, including docking simulations and MD simulations, illustrated that the interaction between inhibitor resorcinarene and Aβ is driven by the non-polar interactions. These studies display a novel strategy for the exploration of promising antiamyloiddogenic agents for AD treatments.

Instrument

J-810

Keywords

Circular dichroism, Secondary structure, Aggregation, Kinetics, Biochemistry