Protein fibres that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease take on different structures in different patients.
Aggregates of the amyloid-β protein are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, but the molecular forms that they take in the brain have not been explored. Robert Tycko at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and his team extracted amyloid-β from the brains of two patients who had died, and who had displayed different symptoms.
They used this amyloid-β to seed the growth of synthetic fibrils and analysed each sample with nuclear magnetic resonance and electron microscopy. Unexpectedly, all the fibrils from each brain had the same molecular structure, but the structures differed between brains.
The researchers say that imaging agents that distinguish between fibril structures might allow more-precise diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Different strains of Alzheimer's. Nature 501, 284 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/501284c
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/501284c
