Fibrillar plaque diseases

Just like in coiled-coils, p-sheet secondary structure (Fig. 2) is ubiquitous in natural examples and in proteins and biomaterials. Alzheimer s disease is characterized by fibrillar amyloid plaques in the cerebral parenchyma. The insoluble amyloid fibrils are predominantly formed upon conformational switching of the 42 amino acid... 

Abundant neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary lesions define Alzheimer s disease. Plaques are extracellular deposits made of the fibrillar P-amyloid peptide. The paired helical filament (PHF) makes up the bulk of the intraneuronal neurofibrillary pathology of Alzheimer s disease, with the straight filament (SF) being a minority species. 

Lesions of Alzheimer s disease, evident as dense plaques composed of fibrillar amyloid beta-proteins, likely develop when these proteins are first induced to form beta-sheet secondary structures. It was demonstrated that membranes containing oxidatively damaged phospholipids accumulated amyloid beta-protein significantly faster than membranes containing unoxidized phospholipids. The protein on oxidized membranes more readily changed conformation to a beta-sheet, indicating that oxidatively damaged phospholipid membranes... 

---