Nanofibres see Congo red

摘要

An imaging process could help shed light on cellular processes in medical disorders such as Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD). CJD is one of several diseases, including type Ⅱ diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, associated with proteins that polymerise into fibres inside cells. The self-assembly processes involved in these diseases are similar to those involved when peptide-based hydrogels are formed. Now, Bing Xu and colleagues at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in China have used sulfonated azo dye Congo red to detect this hydrogel formation in cells.