Biophysics and Physicobiology- HOME
- Story of the Cover
Story of the Cover
A lattice Monte Carlo model for amyloid fibril formation
(Hisashi Okumura, Linh Truong Hoai, Pornthep Sompornpisut, Satoru G. Itoh, Biophysics and Physicobiology 23, e230015 (2026), DOI: 10.2142/biophysico.bppb-v23.0015)
Amyloid fibrils are protein aggregates associated with diseases known as amyloidoses. Molecular dynamics simulations have been widely used to investigate amyloid fibril formation; however, it has been computationally challenging to simulate the entire process from monomers to mature fibrils. To address this issue, we developed a Monte Carlo simulation method based on a mathematical lattice model, in which each protein is represented as a sphere on a lattice point. In the left panel, monomer molecules, shown as white spheres, are randomly distributed on a simple cubic lattice as the initial condition. During the simulation, the monomers gradually assemble into amyloid fibrils represented by red spheres (right panel). This model captures the essential features of fibril formation and provides a versatile approach for investigating amyloid fibril formation processes. We also provide movies of the simulation trajectories as Supplementary materials.