Intrinsically disordered and aggregation prone regions underlie β-aggregation in S100 proteins

PLoS One. 2013 Oct 1;8(10):e76629. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076629. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

S100 proteins are small dimeric calcium-binding proteins which control cell cycle, growth and differentiation via interactions with different target proteins. Intrinsic disorder is a hallmark among many signaling proteins and S100 proteins have been proposed to contain disorder-prone regions. Interestingly, some S100 proteins also form amyloids: S100A8/A9 forms fibrils in prostatic inclusions and S100A6 fibrillates in vitro and seeds SOD1 aggregation. Here we report a study designed to investigate whether β-aggregation is a feature extensive to more members of S100 family. In silico analysis of seven human S100 proteins revealed a direct correlation between aggregation and intrinsic disorder propensity scores, suggesting a relationship between these two independent properties. Averaged position-specific analysis and structural mapping showed that disorder-prone segments are contiguous to aggregation-prone regions and that whereas disorder is prominent on the hinge and target protein-interaction regions, segments with high aggregation propensity are found in ordered regions within the dimer interface. Acidic conditions likely destabilize the seven S100 studied by decreasing the shielding of aggregation-prone regions afforded by the quaternary structure. In agreement with the in silico analysis, hydrophobic moieties become accessible as indicated by strong ANS fluorescence. ATR-FTIR spectra support a structural inter-conversion from α-helices to intermolecular β-sheets, and prompt ThT-binding takes place with no noticeable lag phase. Dot blot analysis using amyloid conformational antibodies denotes a high diversity of conformers; subsequent analysis by TEM shows fibrils as dominant species. Altogether, our data suggests that β-aggregation and disorder-propensity are related properties in S100 proteins, and that the onset of aggregation is likely triggered by loss of protective tertiary and quaternary interactions.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Computer Simulation
  • Flocculation
  • Humans
  • Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
  • Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions
  • Models, Molecular*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Peptide Mapping
  • Protein Folding
  • Protein Stability
  • Protein Structure, Quaternary
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary
  • Recombinant Proteins / chemistry
  • Recombinant Proteins / genetics
  • S100 Proteins / chemistry*
  • S100 Proteins / genetics
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid

Substances

  • Recombinant Proteins
  • S100 Proteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT/MCTES,Portugal) through research grants PTDC/EBB-BIO/117793/2010 and PTDC/QUIBIQ/117789/2010 (to CMG) and doctoral fellowship SFRH/BD/31126/2006 (to HMB), Research fellowship B017/BI-BI/2012 (to SBC), post-doctoral fellowship(SFRH/BPD/47477/2008 (to SSL) and by the strategic Grant PEst-OE/EQB/LA0004/2011 (to the ITQB Laboratório Associado) and partly by a Terry Fox research grant from Liga Portuguesa contra o Cancro – LPCC-NRS (Portugal). GF is supported by a Heisenberg fellowship of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FR 1488/3-2). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.