Nanomechanics of individual amyloid fibrils using atomic force microscopy

Compression elasticity of glucagon amyloid fibrils in the transverse direction was investigated by a nanoindentation approach based on atomic force microscopy (AFM).With force-volume mapping, we obtained the correlations between radially applied force and compression of amyloid fibrils, from which the radial compressive elasticity can be deduced.The estimated elastic modulus at three typical locations of fibrils varied from (0.72±0.80) GPa to (1.26±0.62) GPa under small external forces, imply-ing the structural heterogeneity of different fibrils.