Allosteric amyloid catalysis by coiled coil fibrils

Amyloid fibrils formed from alternating lysine/phenylalanine β-sheet peptides catalyze the hydrolysis of β-lactam antibiotics, a major contaminant in wastewater linked to antibiotic resistance.Peptide variant analysis, MD simulations, and cryo-EM show that β-lactams dock to fibril surfaces via lysine sidechains, and hydrolysis occurs through an allosteric mechanism in a coiled double-fibril structure that embeds the substrates and enables nucleophilic attack.When displayed on silica beads in a column setup, these catalytic fibrils efficiently degrade and remove β-lactams from water, offering a promising strategy to mitigate antibiotic pollution.