Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 23, 2025

Fractionation for Resolution of Soluble and Insoluble Huntingtin Species
Published on: February 27, 2018
Strains of Pathological Protein Aggregates in Neurodegenerative Diseases
Xinzhu Wang1,2, Zeinab Noroozian1,3, Madelaine Lynch1,3
1Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Abstract:
The presence of protein aggregates in the brain is a hallmark of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Considerable evidence has revealed that the pathological protein aggregates in many neurodegenerative diseases are able to self-propagate, which may enable pathology to spread from cell-to-cell within the brain. This property is reminiscent of what occurs in prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. A widely recognized feature of prion disorders is the existence of distinct strains of prions, which are thought to represent unique protein aggregate structures. A number of recent studies have pointed to the existence of strains of protein aggregates in other, more common neurodegenerative illnesses such as AD, PD, and related disorders. In this review, we outline the pathobiology of prion strains and discuss how the concept of protein aggregate strains may help to explain the heterogeneity inherent to many human neurodegenerative disorders.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Amyloid Fibrils
Amyloid deposits were observed as early as 1639 in the liver and the spleen. In 1854, Rudolph Virchow performed iodine staining,...
Amyloid Fibrils
Parkinson's Disease: Overview
Neural Regulation
Alzheimer's Disease: Overview
The clinical diagnosis of AD hinges on the presence of memory and other cognitive impairments. Biomarkers, such as changes in Aβ...
The Proteasome
In this pathway, the target proteins are first tagged with small proteins called ubiquitin. This involves participation of a series of enzymes including— E1 (ubiquitin-activating enzyme), E2 (ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme), and E3...

