X-ray structural study of amyloid-like fibrils of tau peptides bound to small-molecule ligands

Atomic structures of Tau involved in Alzheimer’s disease complexed with small molecule binders are the first step to define the Tau pharmacophore, leading the way to a structure-based design of improved diagnostics and therapeutics. Yet the partially disordered and polymorphic nature of Tau hinders structural analyses. Fortunately, short segments from amyloid proteins, which exhibit similar biophysical properties to the full-length proteins, also form fibrils and oligomers, and their atomic structures can be determined using X-ray microcrystallography. Such structures were successfully used to design amyloid inhibitors. This chapter describes experimental procedures used to determine crystal structures of Tau peptide segments in complex with small-molecule binders.