SINGLE-MOLECULE STUDY UNTANGLES ALZHEIMER-ASSOCIATED PROTEIN AGGREGATES

摘要

Numerous neurodegenerative disorders-specifically "tauo-pathies", including Alzheimer's disease-are characterized by aggregation of a protein called tau in the brain. Still unresolved is how tau transitions from disordered, otherwise soluble molecules in healthy individuals to protein tangles in the disease state. Using single-molecule Foerster resonance energy transfer (FRET), Shana Elbaum-Garfinkle and Elizabeth Rhoades have begun to tease apart the answer (DOI: 10.1021/ja305206m).