Developed a Synthetic “Mini Prion” That Mimics Alzheimer’s

Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of California, Santa Barbara have engineered the first synthetic fragment of the tau protein that behaves like a prion, a type of misfolded protein known for its ability to propagate its abnormal shape to normal proteins. This synthetic “mini prion” folds into fibrils, or thread-like structures, composed of misfolded tau. These fibrils can then induce the same misfolded configuration in other healthy tau proteins.