Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022:2340:281-307.
doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1546-1_13.

Challenges in Experimental Methods

Marlena E Gąsior-Głogowska  1 , Natalia Szulc  2 , Monika Szefczyk  3
Affiliations

Challenges in Experimental Methods

Marlena E Gąsior-Głogowska et al. Methods Mol Biol. 2022.

Abstract

Experimental studies of amyloids encounter many challenges. There are many methods available for studying proteins, which can be applied to amyloids: from basic staining techniques, allowing visualization of fibers, to complex methods, e.g., AFM-IR used to their detailed biochemical and structural characterization in nanoscale. Which method is appropriate depends on the goal of an experiment: verification of aggregational properties of a peptide, distinguishing oligomers from mature fibers, or kinetic studies. Insolubility, rapid aggregation, and the need of using a high-purity peptide may be a limiting factor in studies involving amyloids. Moreover, the results obtained by various experimental methods often differ significantly, which may lead to misclassification of amyloid peptides. Due to ambiguity of experimental results, laborious and time-consuming analysis, bioinformatical methods become more widely used for amyloids.

Keywords: Fibers; Microscopy; Oligomers; Spectroscopy; Staining; Structural analysis; Synthesis.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Sušec T (2016) Historical review. Acta Clin Croat 55:675. https://doi.org/10.20471/acc.2016.55.01.25 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Tanskanen M (2013) “Amyloid” — historical aspects. In: Amyloidosis. InTech, Rijeka
    1. Yakupova EI, Bobyleva LG, Vikhlyantsev IM, Bobylev AG (2019) Congo Red and amyloids: history and relationship. Biosci Rep 39:BSR20181415. https://doi.org/10.1042/BSR20181415 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Otzen D (2010) Functional amyloid: turning swords into plowshares. Prion 4:256–264. https://doi.org/10.4161/pri.4.4.13676 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Hayden EY, Conovaloff JL, Mason A et al (2018) Preparation of pure populations of amyloid β-protein oligomers of defined size. In: Methods in molecular biology. Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ, pp 3–12

LinkOut - more resources