Molecular conformation of porcine amelogenin in solution: three folding units at the N-terminal, central, and...

Circular dichroism (CD) studies were conducted to gain a better insight into the conformation of amelogenins, which were isolated from developing enamel of piglets. The intact porcine amelogenin and its degraded products were purified chromatographically. The 25-residue peptide corresponding to the segment at the C-terminus was synthesized. CD spectra of these samples were measured at pH 5.0-5.3 in the temperature range between 4 and 90 degrees C. The most remarkable finding was that the CD spectrum of the intact amelogenin was accounted for by the sum of the spectra of the three fragments at the N-terminal, central, and C-terminal regions, supporting the hypothesis that the structure of the whole protein consists of discrete folding units. Furthermore, low-angle laser light scattering analysis provided evidence that the 20 kDa amelogenin, the most abundant extracellular matrix protein in forming enamel tissue, exists in a monomeric form at pH 5.3 and 25 degrees C. It was tentatively concluded that the N-terminal region contains beta-sheet structures, while the spectral characteristics of the C-terminal region are similar to those of a random coil conformation. The conformation of the central region was characterized by a strong negative ellipticity at 203 nm, although its nature remains to be defined.