Elsevier, Journal of Molecular Biology, 4(411), p. 881-895
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2011.06.026
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α-Synuclein (AS) fibrils are the major component of Lewy bodies, the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD). Here, we use results from an extensive investigation employing solid-state NMR to present a detailed structural characterization and conformational dynamics quantification of full-length AS fibrils. Our results show that the core extends with a repeated structural motif. This result disagrees with the previously proposed fold of AS fibrils obtained with limited solid-state NMR data. Additionally, our results demonstrate that the three single point mutations associated with early-onset PD-A30P, E46K and A53T-are located in structured regions. We find that E46K and A53T mutations, located in rigid β-strands of the wild-type fibrils, are associated with major and minor structural perturbations, respectively.