Exceptional enhancement of Vibrational Optical Activity (VOA) for amyloid fibrils makes it a highly promising tool for research on the structure, polymorphism, and chirality of their multi-layered architectures. This concept paper discusses current applications of VOA in the analysis of proteinaceous fibrils and outlines future possibilities of VOA for fibril characteristics, particularly in the fields of biomedicine and nanomaterials.

Abstract

Amyloid fibrils are supramolecular systems showing distinct chirality at different levels of their complex multilayered architectures. Due to the regular long-range chiral organization, amyloid fibrils exhibit the most intense Vibrational Optical Activity (VOA) signal observed up to now, making VOA techniques: Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) and Raman Optical Activity (ROA) very promising tools to explore their structures, handedness and intricate polymorphism. This concept article reviews up-to-date experimental studies on VOA applications to investigate amyloid fibrils highlighting its future potential in analyzing of these unique supramolecular systems, in particular in the context of biomedicine and nanotechnology.