Are amyloids infectious?

Abstract

Misfolding and aggregation of proteins is the main feature of a group of maladies which include most of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, and prion diseases), as well as several systemic amyloidosis. Among them, prion disease are the only one known to be infectious. Current evidence shows that the infectious agent in prion diseases is the misfolded protein and that the molecular mechanisms responsible for transmissibility are very similar to the process of amyloid formation in all protein misfolding disorders (PMDs). In this chapter, we discuss the theoretical and experimental evidences suggesting the possible infectious nature of several PMDs. © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009.