Human Islet Amyloid Polypeptide N-Terminus Fragment Self-Assembly: Effect of Conserved Disulfide Bond on Aggregation Propensity

Amyloid formation by human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) has long been implicated in the pathogeny of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and failure of islet transplants, but the mechanism of IAPP self-assembly is still unclear. Numerous fragments of hIAPP are capable of self-association into oligomeric aggregates, both amyloid and non-amyloid in structure. The N-terminal region of IAPP contains a conserved disulfide bond between cysteines at position 2 and 7, which is important to hIAPP’s in vivo function and may play a role in in vitro aggregation. The importance of the disulfide bond in this region was probed using a combination of ion mobility-based mass spectrometry experiments, molecular dynamics simulations, and high-resolution atomic force microscopy imaging on the wildtype 1-8 hIAPP fragment, a reduced fragment with no disulfide bond, and a fragment with both cysteines at positions 2 and 7 mutated to serine. The results indicate the wildtype fragment aggregates by a different pathway than either comparison peptide and that the intact disulfide bond may be protective against aggregation due to a reduction of inter-peptide hydrogen bonding.