17. Linking Prion Fibril Stability and Prion Infectivity
Principal Investigator: Joerg Gsponer, University of British Columbia
Co-Investigators:
Neil Cashman, University of British Columbia
Hongbin Li, University of British Columbia
Collaborator: Jens Pahnke, University of Rostock (Germany)
Transmissibility and a proteinous character of the causing agent characterize bona fide prion diseases. However, it is not fully understood why prion proteins are infectious while other amyloid forming proteins are not. We propose to investigate the hypothesis of a link between fibril stability and infectivity of prion proteins by (i) determining an atomistic picture of the structure that human prion proteins adopt in amyloid fibrils and (ii) comparing structural properties such as rigidity and brittleness
of fibrils formed by different prion mutants by computational and experimental means.
(Recruitment 2010)
Last Updated: 4/16/2010 6:57:41 PM
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