Zinc-Induced Interaction of the Metal-Binding Domain of Amyloid-β Peptide with DNA

The interaction of the 16-mer synthetic peptide (Aβ₁₆), which represents the metal-binding domain of the amyloid-β with DNA, was studied employing the surface plasmon resonance technique. It has been shown that Aβ₁₆ binds to the duplex DNA in the presence of zinc ions and thus the metal-binding domain can serve as a zinc-dependent DNA-binding site of the amyloid-β. The interaction of Aβ₁₆ with DNA most probably depends on oligomerization of the peptide and is dominated by interaction with phosphates of the DNA backbone.