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Functional Amyloids Used by Organisms: A Lesson in Controlling Assembly
Author(s) -
Smith Andrew M.,
Scheibel Thomas
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
macromolecular chemistry and physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.57
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1521-3935
pISSN - 1022-1352
DOI - 10.1002/macp.200900420
Subject(s) - organism , amyloid (mycology) , function (biology) , chemistry , amyloid fibril , computational biology , biology , biophysics , microbiology and biotechnology , amyloid β , disease , medicine , genetics , inorganic chemistry , pathology
Amyloid has been studied primarily in relation to the disease states that it causes in humans, but in recent years, a range of proteins have been identified that self‐assemble to a β ‐sheet rich fold as part of their native function and as such have been termed as functional amyloids.1 These functional amyloids fulfil a range of tasks within cells and extracellularly. In this paper, we will discuss the concept of functional amyloids, specifically in the sense of a structural component for the producing organism. Additionally, we will discuss how these organisms have controlled amyloid formation so that it only occurs at specific locations and at a desired time.