Compressive deformation of ultralong amyloid fibrils

Abstract

Involved in various neurodegenerative diseases, amyloid fibrils and plaques feature a hierarchical structure, ranging from the atomistic to the micrometer scale. At the atomistic level, a dense and organized hydrogen bond network is resembled in a beta-sheet rich secondary structure, which drives a remarkable stiffness in the range of 10–20GPa, larger than many other biological nanofibrils, a result confirmed by both experiment and theory. However, the understanding of how these exceptional mechanical properties transfer from the atomistic to the nanoscale remains unknown. Here we report a multiscale analysis that, from the atomistic-level structure of a single fibril, extends to the mesoscale level, reaching size scales of hundreds of nanometers. We use parameters directly derived from full atomistic simulations of Aβ (1–40) amyloid fibrils to parameterize a mesoscopic coarse-grained model, which is used to reproduce the elastic properties of amyloid fibrils. We then apply our mesoscopic model in an analysis of the buckling behavior of amyloid fibrils with different lengths and report a comparison with predictions from continuum beam theory. An important implication of our results is a severe reduction of the effective modulus due to buckling, an effect that could be important to interpret experimental results of ultra-long amyloid fibrils. Our model represents a powerful tool to mechanically characterize molecular structures on the order of hundreds of nanometers to micrometers on the basis of the underlying atomistic behavior. The work provides insight into structural and mechanical properties of amyloid fibrils and may enable further analysis of larger-scale assemblies such as amyloidogenic bundles or plaques as found in disease states.