Pressure effects on α-synuclein amyloid fibrils: An experimental investigation on their dissociation and reversible nature

α–synuclein amyloid fibrils are found in surviving neurons of Parkinson's disease affected patients, but the role they play in the disease development is still under debate. A growing number of evidences points to soluble oligomers as the major cytotoxic species, while insoluble fibrillar aggregates could even play a protection role. In this work, we investigate α–synuclein fibrils dissociation induced at high pressure by means of Small Angle X-ray Scattering and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. Fibrils were produced from wild type α–synuclein and two familial mutants, A30P and A53T. Our results enlighten the different reversible nature of α–synuclein fibrils fragmentati…