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Updated: Sep 30, 2026

Atomic Scale Structural Studies of Macromolecular Assemblies by Solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Published on: September 17, 2017
Supramolecular structure in full-length Alzheimer's beta-amyloid fibrils: evidence for a parallel beta-sheet
John J Balbach1, Aneta T Petkova, Nathan A Oyler
1Laboratory of Chemical Physics, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-0520 USA.
Abstract:
We report constraints on the supramolecular structure of amyloid fibrils formed by the 40-residue beta-amyloid peptide associated with Alzheimer's disease (A beta(1-40)) obtained from solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements of intermolecular dipole-dipole couplings between (13)C labels at 11 carbon sites in residues 2 through 39. The measurements are carried out under magic-angle spinning conditions, using the constant-time finite-pulse radiofrequency-driven recoupling (fpRFDR-CT) technique. We also present one-dimensional (13)C magic-angle spinning NMR spectra of the labeled A beta(1-40) samples. The fpRFDR-CT data reveal nearest-neighbor intermolecular distances of 4.8 +/- 0.5 A for carbon sites from residues 12 through 39, indicating a parallel alignment of neighboring peptide chains in the predominantly beta-sheet structure of the amyloid fibrils. The one-dimensional NMR spectra indicate structural order at these sites. The fpRFDR-CT data and NMR spectra also indicate structural disorder in the N-terminal segment of A beta(1-40), including the first nine residues. These results place strong constraints on any molecular-level structural model for full-length beta-amyloid fibrils.
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