Amyloid structure exhibits polymorphism on multiple length scales in human brain tissue.

ABSTRACT: Aggregation of Aβ amyloid fibrils into plaques in the brain is a universal hallmark of Alzheimer's Disease (AD), but whether plaques in different individuals are equivalent is unknown. One possibility is that amyloid fibrils exhibit different structures and different structures may contribute differentially to disease, either within an individual brain or between individuals. However, the occurrence and distribution of structural polymorphisms of amyloid in human brain is poorly documented. Here we use X-ray microdiffraction of histological sections of human tissue to map the abundance, orientation and structural heterogeneities of amyloid. Our observations indicate that (i) tissue derived from subjects with different clinical histories may contain different ensembles of fibrillar structur

SUBMITTER: Liu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5024092 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature