In Silico Studies of Peptide-Peptide Interactions: Relevance to Amyloid Beta Peptide Aggregation in Alzheimer’s Disease
Abstract
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, chronic fatal disease of the brain where the amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide appears in its oligomeric forms, which are known to be neurotoxic. One way to stop this neurotoxicity is to prevent self-oligomerization of Aβ peptide. In the literature, it was shown that Aβ binds to itself in the region of Aβ (13-23) referred as the self-recognition site (Rec). In our lab, several pseudopeptides (referred as Ligands) were designed to bind with Aβ (13-23). Computational chemistry techniques such as Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Umbrella Sampling have been utilized to characterize the Ligands that are intended to bind selectively to the Rec. It has been observed that the Ligands bind to Rec, Aβ (13-23), and they are competitive with it, suggesting that these Ligands can compete with the full length of Aβ as well. Thus, they could be considered as “drug” candidates to stop Aβ oligomerization.
Description
Keywords
Chemistry
Citation
Petoyan, A. (2016). In Silico Studies of Peptide-Peptide Interactions: Relevance to Amyloid Beta Peptide Aggregation in Alzheimer’s Disease (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26552