Exploring Protein Fibrils: How They Form and Deliver Drugs

Proteins are like tiny building blocks in our bodies, and sometimes they misfold and clump together, forming structures called fibrils. This is what happens in a disease called amyloidosis. Scientists are looking into how pluronics, like F68 and F127, affect this process. Using special tools, they've found that pluronics speed up the fibril formation. When these tiny molecules interact with proteins at different stages, they change the way heat is absorbed, showing that amorphous aggregates form.But here's an interesting twist: these aggregates might be useful as drug delivery vehicles. Researchers tested this with two drugs, 5-fluorouracil and cytarabine. It turns out that 5-fluorouracil sticks better to the fibril surfaces, while cytarabine doesn't stick as well and can easily come off. This means that 5-fluorouracil combined with pluronics could be deadly to cancer cells. The idea of using protein fibrils to deliver drugs is still new and needs more exploration.