There is strong experimental evidence of the influence of surfactants (e.g., fatty acids) on the kinetics of amyloid fibril formation. However, the structures of mixed assemblies and interactions between surfactants and fibril-forming peptides are still not clear. Here, coarse-grained simulations are employed to study the aggregation kinetics of amyloidogenic peptides in the presence of amphiph...

We show that the mechanism of fibronectin fibril formation on the blastocoel roof of the Xenopus embryo is comparable to that in other systems. Fibril assembly is inhibited by RGD peptide, by an amino-terminal fragment of fibronectin, and by cytochalasin B. When added exogenously, intact fibronectin, but not a 110 kDa cell binding fragment of fibronectin, is incorporated into fibrils. Thus, the...

Cell walls in the giant-celled green alga Valonia utricularis exhibit a “crossed-fibril” type of cell wall structure, wherein cellulose microfibrils (CMFs) are arranged uniform orientation each lamella. The CMF differs by 80° to 120° between neighboring lamellae. arrangement nascent CMFs deposited on regenerating protoplasts was investigated using an atomic force microscope for first time organ...

Our micromechanical experiments show that viscoelastic features of type-I collagen fibril at physiological temperatures display essential dependence on the frequency and speed of heating. For temperatures of 20–30 ◦C the internal friction has a sharp maximum for a frequency less than 2 kHz. Upon heating the internal friction displays a peak at a temperature Tsoft(v) that essentially depends on ...

Transthyretin (TTR) is one of thirty non-homologous proteins whose misfolding, dissociation, aggregation, and deposition is linked to human amyloid diseases. Previous studies have identified that TTR amyloidogenesis can be inhibited through stabilization of the native tetramer state by small molecule binding to the thyroid hormone sites of TTR. We have evaluated a new series of beta-aminoxyprop...

We study the kinetics of prion fibril growth, described by the nucleated polymerization model analytically and by means of numerical experiments. The elementary processes of prion fibril formation lead us to a set of differential equations for the number of fibrils, their total mass, and the number of prion monomers. In difference to previous studies we analyze this set by explicitly taking int...

The inclusion of low-acetylated Gellan Gum and κ-carrageenan into amyloid fibril gels reinforces them mechanically, while preserving the surface functionality fibrils.

Fibrillogenesis of the amyloid beta-protein (Abeta) is believed to play a central role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. Previous studies of the kinetics of Abeta fibrillogenesis showed that the rate of fibril elongation is proportional to the concentration of monomers. We report here the study of the temperature dependence of the Abeta fibril elongation rate constant, ke, in 0.1 M HC...

An apparatus that combines dynamic light scattering and Thioflavin T fluorescence detection is used to simultaneously probe fibril formation in polyglutamine peptides, the aggregating subunit associated with Huntington's disease, in vitro. Huntington's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder in a class of human pathologies that includes Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. These pathologies are...

The major hallmark of Alzheimer's disease is the deposition of plaques of amyloid fibrils formed from amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides. Kinetic studies have contributed significantly towards a mechanistic understanding of amyloid fibril self-assembly, however dynamic features of the aggregation process cannot be captured using ensemble methods. Here we present an assay for imaging Aβ42 aggregation dynam...