Cryo-electron tomography 3D imaging of amyloid-β oligomers carpeting the surface lipid bilayers in near native conditions.

An increasing interest has recently been shown to use chitin/chitosan oligomers (chito-oligomers) in medicine and food fields because they are not only water-soluble, nontoxic, and biocompatible materials, but they also exhibit numerous biological properties, including antibacterial, antifungal, and antitumor activities, as well as immuno-enhancing effects on animals. Conventional depolymerizat...

Soluble oligomers of amyloid beta (Abeta) play a role in the memory impairment characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. Acting as pathogenic ligands, Abeta oligomers bind to particular synapses and perturb their function, morphology, and maintenance. Events that occur shortly after oligomer binding have been investigated here in live hippocampal neurons by single particle tracking of quantum dot-...

Accumulation of misfolded proteins as insoluble aggregates occurs in several neurodegenerative diseases. In Parkinson's disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), alpha-synuclein (alpha S) accumulates in insoluble inclusions. To identify soluble alpha S oligomers that precede insoluble aggregates, we probed the cytosols of mesencephalic neuronal (MES) cells, normal and alpha S-transgenic...

BACKGROUND Procyanidins are a subclass of flavonoids and consist of oligomers of catechin that naturally occur in plants and are known to exert many physiological effects, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and enzyme inhibitory effects. These possible inhibitory effects of the procyanidins were known to involve metal chelation, radical trapping, or direct enzyme binding. PURPOSE The p...

Here, we use single-molecule techniques to study the aggregation of α-synuclein, the protein whose misfolding and deposition is associated with Parkinson's disease. We identify a conformational change from the initially formed oligomers to stable, more compact proteinase-K-resistant oligomers as the key step that leads ultimately to fibril formation. The oligomers formed as a result of the stru...

The self-assembly behaviors of two series of monodispersed oligomers consisting of perylenediimide (PDI) linked by ethynylene and butadiynylene spacers are investigated in solutions. In spite of the very similar chemical structures, the two sets of oligomers manifest completely different optical properties upon self-aggregation, implying differed aggregate structures. While the oligomers contai...

Despite continuing debate about the amyloid β-protein (or Aβ hypothesis, new lines of evidence from laboratories and clinics worldwide support the concept that an imbalance between production and clearance of Aβ42 and related Aβ peptides is a very early, often initiating factor in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Confirmation that presenilin is the catalytic site of γ-secretase has provided a linchpin...

in this paper, we review novel techniques in the emerging field of spatiotemporal 4d pet imaging. we will discuss existing limitations in conventional dynamic pet imaging which involves independent reconstruction of dynamic pet datasets. various approaches that seek to attempt some or all of these limitations are reviewed in this work, including techniques that utilize iterative temporal smooth...