Observation of spatial propagation of amyloid assembly from single nuclei.

ABSTRACT: The crucial early stages of amyloid growth, in which normally soluble proteins are converted into fibrillar nanostructures, are challenging to study using conventional techniques yet are critical to the protein aggregation phenomena implicated in many common pathologies. As with all nucleation and growth phenomena, it is difficult to track individual nuclei in traditional macroscopic experiments, which probe the overall temporal evolution of the sample, but do not yield detailed information on the primary nucleation step as they mix independent stochastic events into an ensemble measurement. To overcome this limitation, we have developed microdroplet assays enabling us to detect single primary nucleation events and to monitor their subsequent spatial as well as temporal evolution, both of

SUBMITTER: Knowles TP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3169119 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature