Annals of the RHEUMATIC DISEASES Leader Does aluminium have a pathogenic role in dialysis associated arthropathy? Dialysis has improved the prognosis and quality of life for patients with chronic renal insufficiency, but at the price of various complications. The first to be recognised were the acute myoclonic encephalopathies,' 2 whose main cause is aluminium overload. This overload results fr...

Amyloidosis is characterized by the extracellular deposition of highly-organized fibrillar aggregates showing a cross-beta super-secondary structure (1). Several proteins are amyloidogenic in humans, resulting in different clinical presentations, either systemic or localized. Transthyretin-related hereditary amyloidosis (ATTR) is a late-onset, dominantly inherited systemic amyloidosis. Heterozy...

Background Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is one of the most common clinical manifestations of TTR-related amyloidosis, both hereditary (ATTR), and wild type (senile systemic amyloidosis, SSA) and often precedes cardiac symptoms. The exact prevalence of CTS in light-chain amyloidosis (AL), ATTR and SSA is not known. We therefore aimed to establish prevalence, risk factors and possible association...

BACKGROUND Immunoglobulin amyloid light-chain (AL)-related cardiac amyloidosis (CA) has a worse prognosis than either wild-type (ATTRwt) or mutant (ATTRm) transthyretin (TTR) CA. Detailed echocardiographic studies have been performed in AL amyloidosis but not in TTR amyloidosis and might give insight into this difference. We assessed cardiac structure and function and outcome in a large populat...

Division of Pediatric Nephrology,1 Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Gazi University,2 Ankara, Turkey; Great Ormond Street Hospital,3 London, England; G. Gaslini Children’s Hospital,4 Genoa, Italy; Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,5 Baltimore, Maryland, USA; National University of Singapore,6 Singapore; and University Children’s Hospital,7 Heidelberg...

There are two major forms of amyloidosis, primary amyloidosis (AL) and secondary amyloidosis. AL amyloidosis results from deposition of immunoglobulin light chains or their fragments. One such example is AL amyloidosis associated with multiple myeloma, in which overproduced immunoglobulin light chains get deposited onto tissues, leading to tissue dysfunction. Amyloidosis in the intestines can p...

OBJECTIVE Our goal is to investigate the distribution of MEFV mutations in patients with renal amyloidosis who are in renal transplant waiting list which is prepared for transplantation. MATERIALS AND METHODS FMF was diagnosed in 25 of the 297 patients between the years 2004 and 2008, who were involved in the study (15 male, 10 female; age 34±7.8). 5 out of 25 patients were transplanted, rema...

Amyloid fibrils form in supersaturated solutions via a nucleation and growth mechanism. Although the structural features of amyloid fibrils have become increasingly clearer, knowledge on the thermodynamics of fibrillation is limited. Furthermore, protein aggregation is not a target of calorimetry, one of the most powerful approaches used to study proteins. Here, with β2-microglobulin, a protein...

Several protein misfolding diseases are associated with the conversion of native proteins into ordered protein aggregates known as amyloid. Studies of amyloid assemblies have indicated that non-native proteins are responsible for initiating aggregation in vitro and in vivo. Despite the importance of these species for understanding amyloid disease, the structural and dynamic features of amyloido...