Effect of sequence variation on the mechanical response of amyloid fibrils probed by steered molecular dynamics simulation

The mechanical failure of mature amyloid fibers produces fragments that act as seeds for the growth of new fibrils. Fragmentation may also be correlated with cytotoxicity. We have used steered atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to study the mechanical failure of fibrils formed by the amyloidogenic fragment of human amylin hIAPP20-29 subjected to force applied in a variety of directions. By introducing systematic variations to this peptide sequence in silico, we have also investigated the role of the amino-acid sequence in determining the mechanical stability of amyloid fibrils. Our calculations show that the force required to induce mechanical failure depends on the direction of the applied stress and upon the degree of structural order present in the β-sheet assemblies, which in turn depends on the peptide sequence. The results have implications for the importance of sequence-dependent mechanical properties on seeding the growth of new fibrils and the role of breakage events in cytotoxicity.