Amyloid and prions: some biochemical investigations of cerebral amyloidosis in mice

Prion-like transmission of protein aggregates or amyloid in several neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and Alzheimer's disease, in addition to the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (or prion diseases), has been proposed recently. This is a controversial idea and, in this paper, we consider what we mean by a "prion", and by "amyloid", and present some biochemical investigations of cerebral prion amyloidosis in mice.