Applications of electron paramagnetic resonance to studies of neurological disease

Abstract

Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR) has the potential to give much detail on the structure of the paramagnetic transition ion coordination sites, principally of Cu2+, in a number of proteins associated with central nervous system diseases. Since these sites have been implicated in misfolding/mis-oligomerisation events associated with neurotoxic molecular species and/or the catalysis of damaging redox reactions in neurodegeneration, an understanding of their structure is important to the development of therapeutic agents. Nevertheless EPR, by its nature an in vitro technique, has its limitations in the study of such complex biochemical systems involving self-associating protein..