Protein misfolding and retinal degeneration

Radouil Tzekov1, Linda Stein, Shalesh Kaushal

  • 1Department of Ophthalmology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts 01655, USA.

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Amyloid deposits were observed as early as 1639 in the liver and the spleen.   In 1854, Rudolph Virchow performed iodine staining, normally used to...
Amyloid Fibrils03:03

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Amyloid fibrils are aggregates of misfolded proteins.  Under most circumstances, misfolded proteins are either refolded by chaperone proteins or degraded by the proteasome. However, in the case of a mutation or a disease, these proteins can accumulate to form large clusters and often further assemble to form elongated fibers, called fibrils. 
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