Title
Enhanced Photoresponsive Graphene oxide-modified g-C3N4 for Disassembly of Amyloid β Fibrils
Author
Jie Wang, Zhongyang Zhang, Hongxing Zhang, Chenglong Li, Menglin Chen, Lei Liu, Mingdong Dong
Year
2018
Journal
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Abstract
Protein misfolding and abnormal self-assembly lead to the aggregates of oligomer, fibrils, or senior amyloid plaques, which is associated with the pathogenesis of many neurodegenerative diseases. Progressive cerebral accumulation of amyloid β-protein (Aβ) was widely proposed to explain the cause of Alzheimer's disease, for which one promising direction of preclinical study is to convert the β-sheet structure of amyloid aggregates into innocent structures. However, the conversion is even harder than the modulation of amyloidosis process. Herein, graphene oxidecarbon nitride (GOg-C3N4) composite was developed as a good photocatalyst for irreversibly disassembling the amyloid aggregates of Aβ (33-42) under UV. Quartz crystal microbalance, circular dichroism spectrum, atomic force microscopy, fluorescent spectra, and mechanical property analysis were performed to analyze this photo-degradation process from different aspects for fully understanding the mechanism, which may provide an important enlightenment for the relevant research in this field and neurodegenerative disease study.
Full Article
Keywords
Circular dichroism, Secondary structure, Aggregation, Materials, Biochemistry