Amyloid Fibrils in Brain Disease

Amyloid fibrils are clumps of misfolded proteins linked to brain disease and other disorders. In normal cells, misfolded proteins are usually refolded by chaperone proteins or broken down by the proteasome. But in some mutations or diseases, these proteins can build up into large clusters and then assemble into long fibers c...

Proteins fold into energetically-favorable structures, with their hydrophobic amino acids on the inside and their charged and polar amino acids on the outside. Some proteins fold easily on their own but many are guided to fold correctly by proteins called chaperones.

Sometimes proteins fold into incorrect shapes, often referred to as misf...