Fluorescent peptide nanoparticles to monitor Aβ oligomers

Alzheimer's disease (AD), a type of progressive neurodegenerative disorder disease, has affected more than 5 million Americans and has already become a primary cause of death for older people in the United States, which is just behind heart disease and cancer. The production and aggregation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide in plaques in extracellular spaces, as well as in the walls of blood vessels, have been widely believed to play an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. Soluble Aβ oligomers, as the most toxic form, have great neurotoxicity, which inhibits several critical neuronal activities such as long-term potentiation and memory loss. Therefore, the real-time monitoring of Aβ oligomers has drawn broad research interest. In this study, we have developed three types of cyclic peptide nanoparticles (c-PNPs) for detecting Aβ oligomers. The results indicate that the negative c-PNPs are the best candidate to monitor Aβ oligomers in serum and cerebrospinal fluid for AD diagnose.