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Updated: Jan 31, 2026

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Published on: May 27, 2021
Membrane-Protein-Hydration Interaction of α-Synuclein with Anionic Vesicles Probed via Angle-Resolved Second-Harmonic
Jan Dedic1, Sandra Rocha2, Halil I Okur1
1Laboratory for fundamental BioPhotonics (LBP), Institute of Bioengineering (IBI), Institute of Materials Science (IMX), School of Engineering (STI), Lausanne Centre for Ultrafast Science (LACUS) , École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , CH-1015 Lausanne , Switzerland.
Abstract:
Amyloid formation of the protein α-synuclein promotes neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease. The normal function of α-synuclein includes synaptic vesicle transport and fusion, and the protein binds strongly to negatively charged vesicles in vitro. Here, we demonstrate that nonresonant angle-resolved second-harmonic scattering detects α-synuclein binding to liposomes through changes in water orientational correlations and can thus be used as a high-accuracy and high-throughput label-free probe of protein-liposome interactions. The obtained results support a binding model in which the N-terminus of α-synuclein adopts an α-helical conformation that lies flat on the vesicle surface while the negatively charged C-terminus remains in solution.
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