Heterotypic Condensate Formation by Prion Proteins and Pro-Inflammatory S100A9

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Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of biomacromolecules has been shown to influence a large variety of biological processes via the formation of membraneless organelles. Aberrant LLPS, however, has been implicated in a number of oncological and neurodegenerative disorders. Proteins related to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s diseases and other major amyloidoses have all been shown to form these condensates. Interestingly, some amyloidogenic proteins were demonstrated to form heterotypic droplets, where both molecules coexisted within the same condensate and affected each other’s aggregation. While such cross-interactions have been reported numerous times under non-LLPS conditions, the heterotypic droplet assemblies were only shown for a very limited number of amyloidogenic proteins. In this work, we examine heterotypic LLPS of prion proteins and the pro-inflammatory S100A9, whose cross-interaction under non-LLPS conditions we confirmed in a previous work. The results show that this interaction under condensation-promoting conditions enhances their aggregation, leading to the formation of a higher concentration of amyloid structures. These findings suggest that the pro-inflammatory S100A9 may have a critical role in promoting prion protein aggregation via the assembly of heterotypic condensates under high molecular crowding conditions.

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