Guanghong Wei et al 2004 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 S5047 doi:10.1088/0953-8984/16/44/002
Guanghong Wei1, Normand Mousseau1 and Philippe Derreumaux2
Show affiliationsIt has been shown recently that even a tetrapeptide can form amyloid fibrils sharing all the characteristics of amyloid fibrils built from large proteins. Recent experimental studies also suggest that the toxicity observed in several neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, is not only related to the mature fibrils themselves, but also to the soluble oligomers formed early in the process of fibrillogenesis. This raises the interest in studying the early steps of the aggregation process. Although fibril formation follows the nucleation–condensation process, characterized by the presence of lag phase, the exact pathways remain to be determined. In this study, we used the activation–relaxation technique and a generic energy model to explore the process of self-assembly and the structures of the resulting aggregates of eight KFFE peptides. Our simulations show, starting from different states with a preformed antiparallel dimer, that eight chains can self-assemble to adopt, with various orientations, four possible distant oligomeric well-aligned structures of similar energy. Two of these structures show a double-layer β-sheet organization, in agreement with the structure of amyloid fibrils as observed by x-ray diffraction; another two are mixtures of dimers and trimers. Our results also suggest that octamers are likely to be below the critical size for nucleation of amyloid fibrils for small peptides.
36.20.Fz Constitution (chains and sequences)
37N25 Dynamical systems in biology (See mainly 92-XX, but also 91-XX)
Issue 44 (10 November 2004)
Received 30 September 2004
Published 22 October 2004
Guanghong Wei et al 2004 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 S5047
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