Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 9, Issue 19, 2002

Amyloid beta (Aβ) protein is the key component of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease brain whereas stefin B is an intracellular cysteine proteinase inhibitor, broadly distributed in different tissue and recently reported to form amyloid fibrils in vitro. By reducing the pH to 4.6, the native conformation of both polypeptides are changed into less ordered metastable intermediates that are stabilized by formation of the more Read More

The process of amyloid fibrils formation is a common mechanism of a large number of unrelated infectious, genetic and spontaneous diseases. A partial list includes the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Alzheimer's diseases, Type II diabetes, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and various unrelated amyloidosis diseases. In spite of its significant clinical importance, the mechanism of fibrillization is not fully understood. This r Read More

More and more evidence shows that Alzheimer's and prion-related diseases belong to the family of conformational diseases characterized by protein self-association and tissue deposition as amyloid fibrils. Regardless of the nature of the protein constituent, all forms of amyloid are stable assemblies based on noncovalent interactions between subunits of crossed β-sheet structure. Understanding the mechanism and molec Read More

The accumulation of proteinaceous deposits has been recognised to occur in several neurodegenerative conditions including Prion diseases, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease. Over the last two decades interest in these conditions has increased markedly, fuelled partially by an increasing prevalence of these diseases in the Western world. Evidence indicates that anomalous protein misfoldin Read More

Main neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders are the deposition of neurofibrillary tangles consisting of abnormally phosphorylated protein tau and of senile plaques largely containing insoluble ß-amyloid peptides (Aß), containing up to 43 amino acid residues derived from the ß-amyloid precursor protein. Such Aß-sheets become visible by using suitable histochemical meth Read More