title: Kinetics of aggregation of synthetic beta-amyloid peptide.
abstract: beta-Amyloid peptide is the major protein component of senile plaques and cerebrovascular amyloid deposits in patients with Alzheimer's disease. The peptide deposits extracellularly in the form of amyloid fibrils, in a cross-beta conformation. beta-amyloid peptide is a 39- to 43-residue segment of a normal membrane precursor protein. In this work, a peptide homologous to the first 40 amino acids of beta-amyloid peptide, beta(1-40), was synthesized and characterized. beta(1-40) exhibited a sharp change in solubility near physiological pH and gel formation at concentrations of 3 mg/ml or greater. Circular dichroism indicated that beta(1-40) contained approximately two-thirds beta-structure, but no alpha-helical character. Quasi-elastic and classical light scattering measurements showed that beta(1-40) aggregated end-to-end in solution, reaching average molecular weights greater than 4 x 10(6) after 13 days. The aggregates were best modeled as rigid rods of 5 nm diameter, similar to the diameter of amyloid fibrils purified from plaques. A mathematical model based on diffusion-limited aggregation was developed to describe the kinetics of aggregation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Tomski
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Murphy
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; D007700:Kinetics; D008027:Light; D008433:Mathematics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D008970:Molecular Weight; D011487:Protein Conformation; D012542:Scattering, Radiation
chemical_list: D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides