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Driving forces and structural determinants of steric zipper peptide oligomer formation elucidated by atomistic simulations.

Posted from Journal of Molecular Biology 99 days ago
Molecular Biology : Molecular Biology Journals

Publication Date: 2012 Feb 8 PMID: 22326493Authors: Matthes, D. - Gapsys, V. - de Groot, B. L.Journal: J Mol BiolUnderstanding the structural and energetic requirements of non-fibrillar oligomer formation harbors the potential to decipher an important, yet still elusive part of amyloidogenic peptide and protein aggregation. Low molecular weight oligomers are described to be transient and polymorphic intermediates in the nucleated self-assembly process to highly ordered amyloid fibers and were additionally found to exhibit a profound cytotoxicity. However, detailed structural information on the... (original story)