Liposome Enhanced Detection of Amyloid Protein Aggregates

Thioflavin-T is used to image amyloid aggregates because of the excellent turn-on fluorescence properties, but binding affinities are low. By mounting multiple dye units on the surface of a vesicle, the binding affinity for α-synuclein fibrils is increased by three orders of magnitude, and the optical response is increased. Cooperative interactions of the dye headgroup and lipid with the protein provide a general strategy for the construction of multivalent amyloid probes based on vesicles.