Setting Up a Bio-AFM to Study Protein Misfolding in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

The clinical pathology of neurodegenerative diseases suggests that earlier onset and progression are related to the accumulation of protein aggregates due to misfolding. A prominent way to extract useful information regarding single-molecule studies of protein misfolding at the nanoscale is by capturing the unbinding molecular forces through forced mechanical tension generated and monitored by an atomic force microscopy-based single-molecule force spectroscopy (AFM-SMFS). This AFM-driven process results in an amount of data in the form of force versus molecular extension plots (force-distance curves), the statistical analysis of which can provide insights into the underlying energy landscape and assess a number of characteristic elastic and kinetic molecular parameters of the investigated sample.

Graph Theory-Based Approach in Brain Connectivity Modeling and Alzheimer's Disease Detection.

There is strong evidence that the pathological findings of Alzheimer's disease (AD), consisting of accumulated amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, could spread around the brain through synapses and neural connections of neighboring brain sections. Graph theory is a helpful tool in depicting the complex human brain divided into various regions of interest (ROIs) and the connections among them. Thus, applying graph theory-based models in the study of brain connectivity comes natural in the study of AD propagation mechanisms.

Force Spectroscopy in Mechanical Protein Domains Unfolding.

Single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) has emerged since the past few years as a prominent set of techniques, within the broader field of atomic force microscopy (AFM), for the study of interactions and binding forces of individual protein molecules. Since force spectroscopy measures the behavior of a molecule when stretching or torsional mechanical force is applied, it can be an excellent tool in the hands of researchers who study protein folding and misfolding mechanisms, by reverse engineering the forced unfolding. Such studies could be of crucial importance in the field of protein-related diseases.

Artificial Neural Networks in Computer-Aided Drug Design: An Overview of Recent Advances.

Computer-aided drug design (CADD) is the framework in which the huge amount of data accumulated by high-throughput experimental methods used in drug design is quantitatively studied. Its objectives include pattern recognition, biomarker identification and/or classification, etc. In order to achieve these objectives, machine learning algorithms and especially artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been used over ADMET factor testing and QSAR modeling evaluation.