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Updated: Dec 25, 2025

Characterizing Individual Protein Aggregates by Infrared Nanospectroscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy
Published on: September 12, 2019
Interplay between Confinement and Drag Forces Determine the Fate of Amyloid Fibrils
Kathleen Beth Smith1, Monika Wehrli1, Aleksandre Japaridze2
1Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
Abstract:
The fine interplay between the simultaneous stretching and confinement of amyloid fibrils is probed by combining a microcapillary setup with atomic force microscopy. Single-molecule statistics reveal how the stretching of fibrils changed from force to confinement dominated at different length scales. System order, however, is solely ruled by confinement. Coarse-grained simulations support the results and display the potential to tailor system properties by tuning the two effects. These findings may further help shed light on in vivo amyloid fibril growth and transport in highly confined environments such as blood vessels.
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