Related topics: alzheimer s disease

Glowing cells light the way to new disease detection

Stains that make specific components of a live cell light up under a microscope have become powerful tools for detecting disease and monitoring biological processes, but the choice of available stains is severely limited ...

Scientists map toxic proteins linked to Alzheimer's

A team of researchers from McMaster University has mapped at atomic resolution a toxic protein linked to Alzheimer's disease, allowing them to better understand what is happening deep within the brain during the earliest ...

Shining molecules distinguish between proteins in the brain

Small shining molecules developed by scientists at Linköping University in Sweden can be designed to distinguish between plaque of different proteins in the brain. They may pave the way for better diagnosis of neurodegenerative ...

Discovery lights path for Alzheimer's research

A probe invented at Rice University that lights up when it binds to a misfolded amyloid beta peptide—the kind suspected of causing Alzheimer's disease—has identified a specific binding site on the protein that could facilitate ...

Amyloid probes gain powers in search for Alzheimer's cause

A metallic molecule being studied at Rice University begins to glow when bound to amyloid protein fibrils of the sort implicated in Alzheimer's disease. When triggered with ultraviolet light, the molecule glows much brighter, ...

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Beta amyloid

Amyloid beta (Aβ or Abeta) is a peptide of 39–43 amino acids that appear to be the main constituent of amyloid plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients. Similar plaques appear in some variants of Lewy body dementia and in inclusion body myositis, a muscle disease. Aβ also forms aggregates coating cerebral blood vessels in cerebral amyloid angiopathy. These plaques are composed of a tangle of regularly ordered fibrillar aggregates called amyloid fibers, a protein fold shared by other peptides such as prions associated with protein misfolding diseases. Research on laboratory rats suggest that the two-molecule, soluble form of the peptide is a causative agent in the development of Alzheimer's and that the two-molecule form is the smallest synaptotoxic species of soluble amyloid beta oligomer

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