articleProceedings of the National Academy of SciencesJul 1, 2002Closed access

The protofilament structure of insulin amyloid fibrils

University of Oxford · Birkbeck, University of London

PubMed
Indexed incrossrefpubmed

Abstract

Under solution conditions where the native state is destabilized, the largely helical polypeptide hormone insulin readily aggregates to form amyloid fibrils with a characteristic cross-beta structure. However, there is a lack of information relating the 4.8 A beta-strand repeat to the higher order assembly of amyloid fibrils. We have used cryo-electron microscopy (EM), combining single particle analysis and helical reconstruction, to characterize these fibrils and to study the three-dimensional (3D) arrangement of their component protofilaments. Low-resolution 3D structures of fibrils containing 2, 4, and 6 protofilaments reveal a characteristic, compact shape of the insulin protofilament. Considerations of…

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