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The periplasmic small heat shock protein HdeA from Escherichia coli is inactive under normal growth conditions (at pH 7) and activated only when E. coli cells are subjected to a sudden decrease in pH, converting HdeA into an acid-denatured active state. Here, using in vitro fibrillation assays, transmission EM, atomic-force microscopy, and CD analyses, we found that when HdeA is active as a molecular chaperone, it is also capable of forming inactive aggregates that, at first glance, resemble amyloid fibrils. We noted that the molecular chaperone activity of HdeA takes precedence over fibrillogenesis under acidic conditions, as the presence of denatured substrate protein was sufficient to suppress HdeA fibril formation. Further experiments suggested that the secondary structure of HdeA fibrils deviates somewhat from typical amyloid fibrils and contains α-helices. Strikingly, HdeA fibrils that formed at pH 2 were immediately resolubilized by a simple shift to pH 7 and from there could regain molecular chaperone activity upon a return to pH 1. HdeA, therefore, provides an unusual example of a "reversible" form of protein fibrillation with an atypical secondary structure composition. The competition between active assistance of denatured polypeptides (its "molecular chaperone" activity) and the formation of inactive fibrillary deposits (its "fibrillogenic" activity) provides a unique opportunity to probe the relationship among protein function, structure, and aggregation in detail.

Dimers of A beta (amyloid beta-protein) are believed to play an important role in Alzheimer's disease. In the absence of sufficient brain-derived dimers, we studied one of the only possible dimers that could be produced in vivo, [A beta](DiY) (dityrosine cross-linked A beta). For comparison, we used the A beta monomer and a design dimer cross-linked by replacement of Ser(26) with cystine [A beta S26C](2). We showed that similar to monomers, unaggregated dimers lack appreciable structure and fail to alter long-term potentiation. Importantly, dimers exhibit subtly different structural propensities from monomers and each other, and can self-associate to form larger assemblies. Although [A beta](DiY) and [A beta S26C](2) have distinct aggregation pathways, they both populate bioactive soluble assemblies for longer durations than A beta monomers. Our results indicate that the link between A beta dimers and Alzheimer's disease results from the ability of dimers to further assemble and form synaptotoxic assemblies that persist for long periods of time.

Extensive evidence suggests that the self-assembly of amyloid-beta peptide (Abeta) is a nucleation-dependent process that involves the formation of several oligomeric intermediates. Despite neuronal toxicity being recently related to Abeta soluble oligomers, results from aggregation studies are often controversial, mainly because of the low reproducibility of several experimental protocols. Here a multimethodological study that included atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), fluorescence microscopy (FLM), mass spectrometry techniques (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight [MALDI-TOF] and electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight [ESI-QTOF]), and direct thioflavin T (ThT) fluorescence spectroscopy were enabled to set up a reliable and highly reproducible experimental protocol for the characterization of the morphology and dimension of Abeta 1-42 (Abeta42) aggregates along the self-assembly pathway. This multimethodological approach allowed elucidating the diverse assembly species formed during the Abeta aggregation process and was applied to the detailed investigation of the mechanism of Abeta42 inhibition by myricetin. In particular, a very striking result was the molecular weight determination of the initial oligomeric nuclei by MALDI-TOF, composed of up to 10 monomers, and their morphology by AFM.