Self-Assembling Protein Fibers
March 31, 2015 | Terry Sharrer
“Amyloid” brings to mind a rogue’s gallery of human afflictions, from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to atherosclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, et al. But amyloid also is involved in staunching blood loss from its affinity for clotting factors, and it gives spiders their ability to make silk. They are self-assembling protein fibers, and researchers at the University of California-Davis and Rice University have found a way to manipulate other proteins to behave as amyloid in self-assembly. Among possible uses for this approach is scaffold construction for tissue engineering. MORE
Image Credit: UCDavis