The Complexity of Amyloid

The discovery that amyloid is a highly organized substance composed of fibrils having a characteristic appearance in the electron microscope, rather than an amorphous material with certain unusual staining properties, helped lift it from an obscure subject of concern only to histopathologists and rare clinicians to one that is currently vying for attention from many disciplines. The existence of a number of structurally related amyloid substances has long been suspected on the basis of differences in Congo-red binding and tissue distribution in different persons. With the development of methods for the solubilization and isolation of amyloid, it became possible to . . .