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Updated: May 26, 2026

Atomic Scale Structural Studies of Macromolecular Assemblies by Solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Published on: September 17, 2017
Zn induced structural aggregation patterns of β-amyloid peptides by first-principle simulations and XAS measurements
Paolo Giannozzi1, Karl Jansen, Giovanni La Penna
1University of Udine, Department of Chemistry, Physics and Environment, via del Cotonificio 108, 33100 Udine, Italy.
Abstract:
We show in this paper that in the presence of Zn ions a peculiar structural aggregation pattern of β-amyloid peptides in which metal ions are sequentially coordinated to either three or four histidines of nearby peptides is favored. To stabilize this configuration a deprotonated imidazole ring from one of the histidines forms a bridge connecting two adjacent Zn ions. Though present in zeolite imidazolate frameworks, remarkably in biological compounds this peculiar Zn-imidazolate-Zn topology is only found in enzymes belonging to the Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase family in the form of an imidazolate bridging Cu and Zn. The results we present are obtained by combining X-ray absorption spectroscopy experimental data with detailed first-principle molecular dynamics simulations.
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