Diabetes Drug Discovery: hIAPP Polymorphic Amyloid Structures as Novel Therapeutic Targets.

Human islet amyloid peptide (hIAPP) aggregation is an early step in Diabetes Mellitus. We aimed to evaluate a family of pharmaco-chaperones to act as modulators that provide dynamic interventions and the multi-target capacity (native state, cytotoxic oligomers, protofilaments and fibrils of hIAPP) required to meet the treatment challenges of diabetes. We used a cross-functional approach that combines in silico and in vitro biochemical and biophysical methods to study the hIAPP aggregation-oligomerization process as to reveal novel potential anti-diabetic drugs.