Incorporation of the Nonproteinogenic Amino Acid β-Methylamino-alanine Affects Amyloid β Fibril Properties and Toxicity.

The nonproteinogenic amino acid β-methylamino alarelevant example for environmental hazards are nonnine (BMAA) is a neurotoxin and represents a potential risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases. Despite intense research over the last years, the pathological mechanism of BMAA is still unclear. One of the main open questions is whether BMAA can be misincorporated into proteins, especially as a substitute for serine, and whether this has structural and functional consequences for the afflicted proteins leading to early onset neurodegeneration. In this study, we hypothesize that BMAA was indeed incorporated into Aβ40 molecules and study the structural and dynamical consequences of such misincorporation along with the effect such mutated Aβ40 peptides have on neuronal cells. We used the synthetic β-amyloid peptide (Aβ40), a known key player in the development of Alzheimer's disease, to incorporate BMAA substitutions at three different positions in the peptide sequence: Ser8BMAA at the peptide's N-terminus, Phe19BMAA in the hydrophobic core region, and S26BMAA in the flexible turn region of Aβ40 fibrils. We performed a set of biophysical experiments including fluorescence, circular dichroism, solid-state NMR spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction to investigate structural and functional aspects of the mutated peptides compared to wildtype Aβ40. All variants showed high structural tolerance to BMAA misincorporation. In contrast, the cellular response and neuronal survival were affected in a mutation site-specific manner. As a consequence, we can state from the physicochemical point of view that, if BMAA was misincorporated into proteins, it could indeed represent a risk factor that could potentially play a role in neurodegeneration. Further research addressing the role of BMAA, especially its protein-associated form, should be performed to obtain a better understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and to develop new therapeutic strategies.