Orcein-Related Small Molecule O4 Destabilizes hIAPP Protofibrils by Interacting Mostly with the Amyloidogenic Core Region.

The accumulation of the human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) deposits in the pancreas is regarded as an important factor that leads to the depletion of islet β-cells and islet transplantation failure. In recent experiments, it was reported that a small organic molecule O4 inhibits the formation of hIAPP1-37 oligomers and fibrils. However, the interaction between O4 molecules and hIAPP oligomers is largely unknown on the atomic level. In this work, we studied the influence of O4 molecules on fibril-like hIAPP pentamer and decamer by performing atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Our results show that O4 molecules mostly bind to the amyloid core region spanning residues 22NFGAI26 for both hIAPP pentamer and decamer, which leads to the local disruption of interpeptide β-sheets. The calculation of contact probability and binding energy indicates that the binding of O4 molecules is mostly driven by aromatic stacking and hydrophobic interactions. Our work reveals the detailed disruption mechanism of full-length hIAPP protofibrils by O4 molecules and may be helpful to the design of more efficient inhibitors against hIAPP aggregation.