Figure 8.

Oligomeric vs filamentous amyloid growth at denaturing vs native temperatures. Schematic of the free energy landscape for oligomeric (left) vs filamentous (right) amyloid growth at denaturing (top) vs physiological (bottom) temperatures. Solid arrows indicate processes while dashed lines represent nucleated processes. At denaturing temperatures, oligomers and protofibrils utilize denatured monomers as growth substrate. Oligomers, in turn, become the substrate for subsequent nucleation and polymerization of protofibrils. At physiological temperatures no amyloid seed can form spontaneously from native monomers. Preformed oligomers, but not filaments, can self-replicate from native monomers.