Biology subjects

Scheres, S.

Publications and source records attributed to Scheres, S..

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Cryo-EM Structures of Amyloid-β 42 Filaments from Human Brain

Filament assembly of amyloid-{beta} peptides ending at residue 42 (A{beta}42) is a central event in Alzheimers disease. We report the cryo-EM structures of A{beta}42 filaments from brain. Two structurally related S-shaped protofilament folds give rise to two types of filaments. Type I filaments were found mostly in the brains of individuals with sporadic Alzheimers disease and Type II filaments in individuals with familial Alzheimers disease and other conditions. The structures of A{beta}42 filaments from brain differ from those of filaments assembled in vitro. By contrast, in AppNL-F knock-in mice, A{beta}42 deposits were made of Type II filaments. Knowledge of A{beta}42 filament structures from human brain may lead to the development of inhibitors of assembly and improved imaging agents.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Structure-based Classification of Tauopathies

Ordered assembly of the tau protein into filaments characterizes multiple neurodegenerative diseases, which are called tauopathies. We previously reported that by electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM), tau filament structures from Alzheimers disease (1,2), chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) (3), Picks disease (4) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD) (5) are distinct. Here we show that the structures of tau filaments from typical and atypical progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), the most common tauopathy after Alzheimers disease, define a previously unknown, three-layered fold. Moreover, the tau filament structures from globular glial tauopathy (GGT, Types I and II) are similar to those from PSP. The tau filament fold of argyrophilic grain disease (AGD) differs from the above and resembles the four-layered CBD fold. The majority of tau filaments from aging-related tau astrogliopathy (ARTAG) also have the AGD fold. Surprisingly, tau protofilament structures from inherited cases with mutations +3/+16 in intron 10 of MAPT, the microtubule-associated protein tau gene, are identical to those from AGD, suggesting that a relative overproduction of four-repeat tau can give rise to the AGD fold. Finally, tau filament structures from cases of familial British dementia (FBD) and familial Danish dementia (FDD) are the same as those from Alzheimers disease and primary age-related tauopathy (PART). These structures provide the basis for a classification of tauopathies that also allows identification of new entities, as we show here for a case diagnosed as PSP, but with abundant spherical 4R tau inclusions in limbic and other brain areas. The structures of the tau fold of this new disease (Limbic-predominant Neuronal inclusion body 4R Tauopathy, LNT) were intermediate between those of GGT and PSP.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Seeded assembly in vitro does not replicate the structures of α-synuclein filaments from multiple system atrophy

The propagation of conformational strains by templated seeding is central to the prion concept. Seeded assembly of -synuclein into filaments is believed to underlie the prion-like spreading of protein inclusions in a number of human neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and multiple system atrophy (MSA). We previously determined the atomic structures of -synuclein filaments from the putamen of five individuals with MSA. Here, we used filament preparations from three of these brains for the in vitro seeded assembly of recombinant human -synuclein. We find that the structures of the seeded assemblies differ from those of the seeds, suggesting that additional, as yet unknown, factors play a role in the propagation of pathology. Identification of these factors will be essential for understanding the prion-like spreading of -synuclein proteinopathies.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Single-particle cryo-EM at atomic resolution

The three-dimensional positions of atoms in protein molecules define their structure and provide mechanistic insights into the roles they perform in complex biological processes. The more precisely atomic coordinates are determined, the more chemical information can be derived and the more knowledge about protein function may be inferred. With breakthroughs in electron detection and image processing technology, electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) single-particle analysis has yielded protein structures with increasing levels of detail in recent years1,2. However, obtaining cryo-EM reconstructions with sufficient resolution to visualise individual atoms in proteins has thus far been elusive. Here, we show that using a new electron source, energy filter and camera, we obtained a 1.7 [A] resolution cryo-EM reconstruction for a prototypical human membrane protein, the {beta}3 GABAA receptor homopentamer3. Such maps allow a detailed understanding of small molecule coordination, visualisation of solvent molecules and alternative conformations for multiple amino acids, as well as unambiguous building of ordered acidic side chains and glycans. Applied to mouse apo-ferritin, our strategy led to a 1.2 [A] resolution reconstruction that, for the first time, offers a genuine atomic resolution view of a protein molecule using single particle cryo-EM. Moreover, the scattering potential from many hydrogen atoms can be visualised in difference maps, allowing a direct analysis of hydrogen bonding networks. Combination of the technological advances described here with further approaches to accelerate data acquisition and improve sample quality provide a route towards routine application of cryo-EM in high-throughput screening of small molecule modulators and structure-based drug discovery.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2020

Exploiting prior knowledge about biological macromolecules in cryo-EM structure determination

Three-dimensional reconstruction of the electron scattering potential of biological macromolecules from electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) projection images is an ill-posed problem. The most popular cryo-EM software solutions to date rely on a regularisation approach that is based on the prior assumption that the scattering potential varies smoothly over three-dimensional space. Although this approach has been hugely successful in recent years, the amount of prior knowledge it exploits compares unfavourably to the knowledge about biological structures that has been accumulated over decades of research in structural biology. Here, we present a regularisation framework for cryo-EM structure determination that exploits prior knowledge about biological structures through a convolutional neural network that is trained on known macromolecular structures. We insert this neural network into the iterative cryo-EM structure determination process through an approach that is inspired by Regularisation by Denoising. We show that the new regularisation approach yields better reconstructions than the current state-of-the-art for simulated data and discuss options to extend this work for application to experimental cryo-EM data.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Amyloid structure determination in RELION-3.1

Helical reconstruction in RELION is increasingly used to determine atomic structures of amyloid filaments from electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) images. However, because the energy landscape of amyloid refinements is typically fraught with local optima, amyloid structure determination is often difficult. This paper aims to help RELION users in this process. It discusses aspects of helical reconstruction that are specific to amyloids; it illustrates the problem of local optima in refinement and how to detect these; and it introduces a new method to calculate 3D initial models from reference-free 2D class averages. By providing starting models that are closer to the global optimum, this method makes amyloid structure determination easier. All methods described are open-source and distributed within RELION-3.1. Their use is illustrated using a publicly available data set on tau filaments from the brain of an individual with Alzheimers disease.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2019

Novel tau filament fold in corticobasal degeneration, a four-repeat tauopathy

Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a neurodegenerative tauopathy that is characterised by motor and cognitive disturbances (1-3). A higher frequency of the H1 haplotype of MAPT, the tau gene, is present in cases of CBD than in controls (4, 5) and genome-wide association studies have identified additional risk factors (6). By histology, astrocytic plaques are diagnostic of CBD (7, 8), as are detergent-insoluble tau fragments of 37 kDa by SDS-PAGE (9). Like progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), globular glial tauopathy (GGT) and argyrophilic grain disease (AGD) (10), CBD is characterised by abundant filamentous tau inclusions that are made of isoforms with four microtubule-binding repeats (4R) (11-15). This distinguishes 4R tauopathies from Picks disease, filaments of which are made of three-repeat (3R) tau isoforms, and from Alzheimers disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), where both 3R and 4R tau isoforms are found in the filaments (16). Here we report the structures of tau filaments extracted from the brains of three individuals with CBD using electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM). They were identical between cases, but distinct from those of Alzheimers disease, Picks disease and CTE (17-19). The core of CBD filaments comprises residues K274-E380 of tau, spanning the last residue of R1, the whole of R2, R3 and R4, as well as 12 amino acids after R4. It adopts a novel four-layered fold, which encloses a large non-proteinaceous density. The latter is surrounded by the side chains of lysine residues 290 and 294 from R2 and 370 from the sequence after R4. CBD is the first 4R tauopathy with filaments of known structure.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Estimation of high-order aberrations and anisotropic magnification from cryo-EM datasets in RELION-3.1

We present methods that detect three types of aberrations in single-particle cryo-EM data sets: symmetrical and antisymmetrical optical aberrations and magnification anisotropy. Because our methods only depend on the availability of a preliminary 3D reconstruction from the data, they can be used to correct for these aberrations for any given cryo-EM data set, a posteriori. Using five publicly available data sets, we show that considering these aberrations improves the resolution of the 3D reconstruction when the effects are present. The methods are implemented in version 3.1 of our open-source software package RELION.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2018

Tau filaments from multiple cases of sporadic and inherited Alzheimer’s disease adopt a common fold

The ordered assembly of tau protein into abnormal filaments is a defining characteristic of Alzheimers disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders. It is not known if the structures of tau filaments vary within, or between, the brains of individuals with AD. We used a combination of electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) and immuno-gold negative-stain electron microscopy (immuno-EM) to determine the structures of paired helical filaments (PHFs) and straight filaments (SFs) from the frontal cortex of 17 cases of typical AD (15 sporadic and 2 inherited) and 2 cases of atypical AD (posterior cortical atrophy). The high-resolution structures of PHFs and SFs from the frontal cortex of 3 cases of typical AD, 2 sporadic and 1 inherited, were determined by cryo-EM. We also used immuno-EM to study the PHFs and SFs from a number of cortical and subcortical brain regions. PHFs outnumbered SFs in all AD cases. By cryo-EM, PHFs and SFs were made of two C-shaped protofilaments with a combined cross-{beta}/{beta}-helix structure, as described previously for a case of AD. The higher resolution structures obtained here showed two additional amino acids at each end of the protofilament structure. The immuno-EM findings, which established the presence of repeats 3 and 4, but not repeats 1 and 2, of tau in the filament cores of all AD cases and brain regions thereof, were consistent with the cryo-EM results. These findings show that there is no significant variation in tau filament structures between individuals with AD. This knowledge will be crucial for understanding the mechanisms that underlie tau filament formation and for developing novel diagnostics and therapies.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

A Bayesian approach to beam-induced motion correction in cryo-EM single-particle analysis

We present a new method to estimate the trajectories of particle motion and the amount of cumulative beam damage in electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) single particle analysis. We model the motion within the sample through the use of Gaussian Process regression. This allows us to associate with each hypothetical set of particle trajectories a prior likelihood that favours spatially and temporally smooth motion without imposing hard constraints. This formulation enables us to express the a-posteriori likelihood of a set of particle trajectories as a product of that prior likelihood and an observation likelihood given by the data, and to then maximise this a-posteriori likelihood. Since our smoothness prior requires three parameters that describe the statistics of the observed motion, we also propose an efficient stochastic method to estimate those parameters. Finally, we propose a practical means of estimating the average amount of cumulative radiation damage as a function of radiation dose and spatial frequency, and a robust method of fitting relative B-factors to it. We evaluate our method on three publicly available datasets, and illustrate its usefulness by comparison with state-of-the-art methods and previously published results. The new method has been implemented as Bayesian polishing in RELION-3, where it replaces the existing particle polishing method, as it outperforms the latter in all tests conducted.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2018

Structures of filaments from Pick’s disease reveal a novel tau protein fold

The ordered assembly of tau protein into abnormal filamentous inclusions underlies many human neurodegenerative diseases1. Tau assemblies appear to spread through specific neural networks in each disease2, with short filaments having the greatest seeding activity3. The abundance of tau inclusions strongly correlates with disease symptoms4. Six tau isoforms are expressed in normal adult human brain - three isoforms with four microtubule-binding repeats each (4R tau) and three isoforms lacking the second repeat (3R tau)1. In various diseases, tau filaments can be composed of either 3R tau or 4R tau, or of both 3R and 4R tau. They have distinct cellular and neuroanatomical distributions5, with morphological and biochemical differences suggesting that they may be able to adopt disease-specific molecular conformations6,7. Such conformers may give rise to different neuropathological phenotypes8,9, reminiscent of prion strains10. However, the underlying structures are not known. Using electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM), we recently reported the structures of tau filaments from Alzheimers disease, which contain both 3R and 4R tau11. Here we have determined the structures of tau filaments from Picks disease, a neurodegenerative disorder characterised by frontotemporal dementia. They consist of residues K254-F378 of 3R tau, which are folded differently when compared to tau in Alzheimers disease filaments, establishing the existence of conformers of assembled tau. The Pick fold explains the selective incorporation of 3R tau in Pick bodies and the differences in phosphorylation relative to the tau filaments of Alzheimers disease. Our findings show how tau can adopt distinct folds in human brain in different diseases, an essential step for understanding the formation and propagation of molecular conformers.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2016

Helical reconstruction in RELION

We describe a new implementation for the reconstruction of helical assemblies in the empirical Bayesian framework of RELION. Our approach calculates optimal linear filters for the 3D reconstruction by embedding helical symmetry operators in Fourier-space, and deals with deviations from perfect helical symmetry through Gaussian-shaped priors on the orientations of individual segments. By incorporating our approach into the standard pipeline for single-particle analysis in RELION, our implementation aims to be easily accessible for non-experienced users. Although our implementation does not solve the problem that grossly incorrect structures can be obtained when the wrong helical symmetry is imposed, we show for four different test cases that it is capable of reconstructing structures to near-atomic resolution.\n\nAbbreviations

molecular biology↗