PURPOSE OF REVIEW Transthyretin familial amyloid polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP) is a highly disabling, life-threatening disease characterized by progressive sensorimotor and autonomic neuropathy. The profile of the disease across Europe is inadequately understood at present. RECENT FINDINGS The incidence and clinical presentation of TTR-FAP varies widely within Europe, with early and late-onset dis...

OBJECTIVES We sought to investigate the improvement in quality of life (mental and physical components) at 1 and 6 months after liver transplantation. METHODS A sample of liver transplant candidates (n = 60), comprising consecutive patients attending outpatient clinics of a liver transplantation central unit (25% of the patients had familial amyloid polyneuropathy [FAP] and the remaining pate...

Five patients, two British and three French, with late onset amyloid neuropathy were found to have mutations of the transthyretin (TTR) gene associated with the Portuguese and German types of familial amyloid polyneuropathy. Familial amyloid polyneuropathy is rare in the United Kingdom and has not previously been defined at a molecular genetic level. None of the patients had a history of affect...

A family with familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) due to a transthyretin (TTR) Leu58Arg mutation was investigated clinicopathologically. The proband presented with sensorimotor-autonomic polyneuropathy and autopsy demonstrated massive amyloid deposition in the peripheral nerves and heart. However, the mother was characterized by carpal tunnel syndrome and ocular vitreous opacities. Thus, ther...

A patient with Portuguese familial amyloid polyneuropathy who developed haemarthroses secondary to pathological fractures is described. Amyloid material was demonstrated on bone biopsy and confirmed immunohistochemically to be transthyretin (prealbumin). Although amyloid deposits in bone have been described in other types of amyloid, this is believed to be the first proved case of amyloid depos...

Transthyretin (TTR) is one of the many proteins that are known to misfold and aggregate (i.e., undergo amyloidogenesis) in vivo. The process of TTR amyloidogenesis causes nervous system and/or heart pathology. While several of these maladies are associated with mutations that destabilize the native TTR quaternary and/or tertiary structure, wild-type TTR amyloidogenesis also leads to the degener...

We report a 61-year-old Japanese woman with transthyretin (TTR) Val33-related familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP). She presented with late-onset, vitreous involvement as the initial manifestation, slow development of polyneuropathy, cardiomyopathy, and severe autonomic failure without carpal tunnel syndrome. Liver transplantation was performed and her postoperative course was stable. Taken to...

Background Tafamidis is a transthyretin (TTR) stabilizer able to prevent mutated TTR tetramer dissociation into amyloidogenic monomers. There have been a few encouraging studies on safety and long-term efficacy of Tafamidis in early-onset Val30Met TTR-familial amyloid polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP) patients. However, less is known about its efficacy in later stages of the disease and in non-Val30Met ...

The amyloid state of protein organization is typically associated with debilitating human neuropathies and is seldom observed in physiology. Here, we uncover a systemic program that leverages the amyloidogenic propensity of proteins to regulate cell adaptation to stressors. On stimulus, cells assemble the amyloid bodies (A-bodies), nuclear foci containing heterogeneous proteins with amyloid-lik...

A specialized role for gangliosides is the binding of amyloid β protein, a pathological hallmark in Alzheimer’s disease [1,2]. Furthermore, gangliosides can act as receptors for viruses, bacterial toxins (e.g. GM1 for cholera toxin and GQ1b for botulinum toxin) [37] and have been thought to be the autoimmune targets in immunemediated neuropathies (like Guillain-Barré syndrome) as well as other ...