Ultrasound Effects on Assembly of Glucagon Fibrils

Abstract

In this work, we studied the ultrasound effect on the assembly of glucagon fibrils with Atomic force microscope (AFM) and fluorescence analysis. Experimental results showed that ultrasound can promote the formation of glucagon fibrils initially and thus drastically reduce the “lag time”. The growth rate of fibrils as well as their morphologies was remarkably dependent on an applied ultrasonic power. With increasing incubation time, glucagon fibrils became ununiform and showed segment-like shapes when a low-power ultrasound (<100 W) was applied. While at the action of a high-power ultrasound (180 W) fibrils were broken gradually and therefore more and more fragments were visualized using AFM. Finally, the modulating mechanism of ultrasound on glucagon fibrils formation was also briefly discussed.

Keywords:

• Glucagon fibrils
• ultrasound
• aggregation

Acknowledgments

This work is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11074137, 10874198, 21073222), the Qianjiang Talent Project of Zhejiang Province (2011R10084), Ningbo Natural Science Foundation (No. 2011A610025) and the K. C. Wong Magna Fund in Ningbo University.