Optical trapping for the characterization of amyloid-beta aggregation kinetics
Anthony J. Veloso, Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, Xin R. Cheng, Eiichi Tamiya and Kagan Kerman
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is marked by the accumulation of neuronal plaques from insoluble amyloid- beta (Ab) peptides. Growing evidence for the role of Ab oligomers in neuronal cell cytotoxicity and pathogenesis has prompted the development of novel techniques to better understand the early stages of aggregation. K. Kerman and co-workers applied near infrared (NIR) optical trapping technique to characterize the early stages of Ab aggregation in the presence of a beta-sheet intercalating dye, Congo Red (CR), as the fluorescent marker. The integration of fluorescence analysis with NIR optical trapping has provided a new outlook into the first two hours of Ab aggregation.
Date: 2011-09-30