Nanomechanical Characterization of Amyloid Fibrils Using Single-Molecule Experiments and Computational Simulations

Figure 5

Length-dependent vibrational and nanomechanical properties of human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) fibrils computed from the elastic network model. (a) The mode index for three dominant deformation modes such as bending, torsional, and axial stretching deformation modes, respectively, is shown as a function of fibril length. As the fibril length increases, the torsional and axial deformation modes become the high-frequency vibrational modes, while the bending deformation modes are the low-frequency vibrational modes without any dependence on the fibril length. (b) The bending rigidity of hIAPP amyloid fibrils is shown as a function of their length scales based on ENM simulations. Figures are adopted with permission from [22].

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(b)