Blocking PSD95-PDZ3's Amyloidogenesis Through Point Mutations That Inhibit High-Temperature Reversible Oligomerization (RO)

The third PDZ domain of the postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD95-PDZ3; 11 kDa, 103 residues) has a propensity to form amyloid fibrils at high temperatures. At neutral pH, PDZ3 is natively folded, but it exhibits a peculiar three-state thermal unfolding with a reversible oligomerization (RO) equilibrium at high temperatures, which is uncharacteristic in the unfolding of a small globular protein as PDZ3 is. Here, we examined the RO's role in PDZ3's amyloidogenesis at high-temperature using two variants (F340A and L342A) that suppress the high-temperature RO and five single-alanine-mutated variants, where we mutated surface-exposed hydrophobic residues to alanine. Circular Dichroism (CD), Analytical Ultracentrifuge (AUC), and other spectroscopic measurements confirmed the retention of the native structure at ambient temperature. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) was used to assess the presence or absence of the high-temperature RO, and the amyloidogenicity of the variants was measured by Thioflavin T (ThT) fluorescence and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). By comparing the fraction of RO and the ThT signal, we found that mutations that suppressed the high-temperature RO strongly inhibited amyloidogenesis. On the other hand, all variants forming RO also formed amyloids under the same conditions as the wild-type PDZ3.