Abnormal protein aggregation and neurodegenerative diseases

Abnormal protein aggregation or amyloid is the major cause of many neurodeg enerative disorders. The present review focuses on the correlation between sequence and structure features of proteins related to the diseases and abn ormal protein aggregation. Recent progress has improved our knowledge on un derstanding the mechanism of amyloid formation. We suggest a nucleation mod el for ordered protein aggregation, which can also explain pathogenesis mec hanisms of these neurodegenerative diseases in vivo.