The destructive effect of botulinum neurotoxins on the SNARE protein: SNAP-25 and synaptic membrane fusion

Synaptic exocytosis requires the assembly of syntaxin 1A and SNAP-25 on the plasma membrane and synaptobrevin 2 (VAMP2) on the vesicular membrane to bridge the two opposite membranes. It is believed that the three SNARE proteins assemble in steps along the dynamic assembly pathway. The C-terminus of SNAP-25 is known to be the target of botulinum neurotoxins (BoNT/A and BoNT/E) that block neurotransmitters release in vivo. In this study, we employed electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to investigate the conformation of the SNAP-25 C-terminus in binary and ternary SNARE complexes. The fluorescence lipid mixing assay shows that the C-terminal of SNAP-25 is essential for membrane fusion, and that the truncated SNAP-25 mutants cleaved by BoNT/A and BoNT/E display different inhibition effects on membrane fusion: SNAP-25E (Δ26) abolishes the fusion activity of the SNARE complex, while SNAP-25A (Δ9) loses most of its function, although it can still form a SDS-resistant SNARE complex as the wild-type SNAP-25. CW-EPR spectra validate the unstable structures of the SNARE complex formed by SNAP-25 mutants. We propose that the truncated SNAP-25 mutants will disrupt the assembly of the SNARE core complex, and then inhibit the synaptic membrane fusion accordingly.