Ring-like N-fold Models of Aβ42 fibrils

When assembling as fibrils Aβ40 peptides can only assume U-shaped conformations while Aβ42 can also arrange as S-shaped three-stranded chains. We show that this allows Aβ42 peptides to assemble pore-like structures that may explain their higher toxicity. For this purpose, we develop a scalable model of ring-like assemblies of S-shaped Aβ1–42 chains and study the stability and structural properties of these assemblies through atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the proposed arrangements are in size and symmetry compatible with experimentally observed Aβ assemblies. We further show that the interior pore in our models allows for water leakage as a possible mechanism of cell toxicity of Aβ42 amyloids.Simulations were done on the SCHOONER cluster of the University of Oklahoma and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) which is supported by NSF under grant ACI-1053575. We acknowledge financial support from NSF CHE-1266256. Open access fees fees for this article provided whole or in part by OU Libraries Open Access Fund.Ye