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Amyloid beta (Aβ) deposits are implicated in the pathogenesis of debilitating neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. In the present study, the interactions of carbon-based nanoparticles (NPs) such as fullerene and fullerenol having different surface chemistry with Aβ were investigated using molecular dynamics simulations and docking studies. A detailed analysis of docking results showed that in 68% of the Aβ conformations, fullerene and fullerenol showed interactions with the N-terminal region of the peptide. However, the high-affinity binding site (E=-48.31 kJ/mol) of fullerene resides in the hydrophobic middle region of the peptide, whereas fullerenol interacts favorably with the charged N-terminal region with a binding energy of -50.42 kJ/mol. The above differences in binding could be attributed to the surface chemistry of fullerene and fullerenol. Moreover, the N-terminal and middle regions of Aβ play an important role in Aβ aggregation. Therefore, the binding of fullerene and fullerenol could inhibit amyloid aggregation. This information will be helpful in designing NPs for targeting amyloid-related disorders., Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

C60-fullerene has promising biological applications, such as drug delivery, biosensors, diagnosis and theraupetics. Despite of these applications, several in vitro studies have also reported the DNA damaging potential of this nanomaterial. Though, very little is known about the mechanism involved behind the fullerene mediated DNA damage. Our study was aimed at identifying the binding site of fullerene in the ATP binding domain of human topoisomerase II alpha, a major enzyme involved in maintaining DNA topology. In silico studies of fullerene with the enzyme demonstrated that it can interact with the active site residues of this enzyme through hydrophobic, pi-stacking and van der Waals interactions and could inhibit the activity of this enzyme.