Intrinsic Origin of Tau Protein Aggregation: Effects of Histidine Tautomerism on Tau267-312 Monomer.

Histidine tautomerism is considered a crucial component that affects the constitutional and accumulation characteristics of the tau267-312 monomer in the neutral condition, which are connected with the pathobiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Interpreting the organizational characteristics and accumulation procedure is a challenging task because two tautomeric conformations (the Nε-H or Nδ-H tautomer) can occur in the open neutral condition. In the current work, replica-exchange molecular dynamics (REMD) simulations were performed to investigate the structural properties of the tau267-312 monomer considering the histidine tautomeric effect. Based on the simulation outcomes, the histidine 268 (H268) (δ)-H299 (δ) (δδ) isomer had the highest β-sheet content with a value of 26.2%, which acquires a sheet-governing toxic conformer with the first abundant conformational state of 22.6%. In addition, δδ displayed notable antiparallel β-sheets between lysine 8 (K8)-asparagine 13 (N13) and valine 40 (V40)-tyrosine 44 (Y44) as well as between K32-H33 and V40-Y44 (β-meander supersecondary structure), indicating this tautomeric isomer may exist to stimulate tau oligomerization. Furthermore, H299 was found to play an essential role in the structural stabilization of the δδ isomer compared with H268. The present research will aid in obtaining insight into the organizational and accumulation properties of tau protein in the presence of histidine tautomerism to control AD.