Designed amyloid beta peptide fibril - a tool for high-throughput screening of fibril inhibitors

Amyloid beta peptide (Abeta) fibril formation is widely believed to be the causative event of Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. Therapeutic approaches are therefore in development that target various sites in the production and aggregation of Abeta. Herein we present a high-throughput screening tool to generate novel hit compounds that block Abeta fibril formation. This tool is an application for our fibril model (Abeta(16-37)Y(20)K(22)K(24))(4), which is a covalent assembly of four Abeta fragments. With this tool, screening studies are complete within one hour, as opposed to days with native Abeta(1-40). A Z' factor of 0.84+/-0.03 was determined for fibril formation and inhibition, followed by the reporter molecule thioflavin T. Herein we also describe the analysis of a broad range of reported inhibitors and non-inhibitors of Abeta fibril formation to test the validity of the system.