Molecular Dynamics Simulation Suggests Possible Interaction Patterns at Early Steps of β2-Microglobulin Aggregation

Early events in aggregation of proteins are not easily accessible by experiments. In this work, we perform a 5-ns molecular dynamics simulation of an ensemble of 27 copies of β2-microglobulin in explicit solvent. During the simulation, the formation of intermolecular contacts is observed. The simulation highlights the importance of apical residues and, in particular, of those at the N-terminus end of the molecule. The most frequently found pattern of interaction involves a head-to-head contact arrangement of molecules. Hydrophobic contacts appear to be important for the establishment of long-lived (on the simulation timescale) contacts. Although early events on the pathway to aggregation and fibril formation are not directly related to the end-state of the process, which is reached on a much longer timescale, simulation results are consistent with experimental data and in general with a parallel arrangement of intermolecular β-strand pairs.