https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00328-0
Regular Article - Soft Matter
Synchrotron X-ray study of intrinsically disordered and polyampholytic Tau 4RS and 4RL under controlled ionic strength
1
Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, 305-701, Daejeon, Korea
2
Materials Department, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Department, Physics Department, and Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of California, 93106, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
3
Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, 93106, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
4
Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Department, College of Creative Studies Biology, Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, 93106, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
5
Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, POSTECH, 37673, Pohang, Korea
6
Division of Advanced Nuclear Engineering, POSTECH, 37673, Pohang, Korea
Received:
9
June
2023
Accepted:
25
July
2023
Published online:
31
August
2023
Aggregated and hyperphosphorylated Tau is one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Tau is a polyampholytic and intrinsically disordered protein (IDP). In this paper, we present for the first time experimental results on the ionic strength dependence of the radius of gyration (Rg) of human Tau 4RS and 4RL isoforms. Synchrotron X-ray scattering revealed that 4RS Rg is regulated from 65.4 to 58.5 Å and 4RL Rg is regulated from 70.9 to 57.9 Å by varying ionic strength from 0.01 to 0.592 M. The Rg of 4RL Tau is larger than 4RS at lower ionic strength. This result provides an insight into the ion-responsive nature of intrinsically disordered and polyampholytic Tau, and can be implicated to the further study of Tau-Tau and Tau-tubulin intermolecular structure in ionic environments.
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