Superresolution Imaging of Amyloid Fibrils with Binding-Activated Probes

• Protein misfolding into amyloid-like aggregates underlies many neurodegenerative diseases. Thus, insights into the structure and function of these amyloids will provide valuable information on the pathological mechanisms involved and aid in the design of improved drugs for treating amyloid-based disorders. However, determining the structure of endogenous amyloids at high resolution has been difficult. Here we employ binding-activated localization microscopy (BALM) to acquire superresolution images of alpha-synuclein amyloid fibrils with unprecedented optical resolution. We propose that BALM imaging can be extended to study the structure of other amyloids, for differential diagnosis of amyloid-related diseases and for discovery of drugs that perturb amyloid structure for therapy.

Nyckelord

Alzheimers disease

Parkinsons disease

amyloid

superresolution

neurodegenerative diseases

binding-activated

localization microscopy

diagnosis

alpha-synuclein

TECHNOLOGY

TEKNIKVETENSKAP

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