Table 1.

Characteristics of three microbial cell surface amyloids that mediate adherence of the microbe to human tissue and cells. These amyloids are all expressed under physiological conditions. GPI: glycosylphosphatidyl inositol anchor.

Characteristic	E. coli curli	P. falciparum MSPII	C. albicans Als proteins
Mol. Weight	polymers of ∼15kDa protein	30 kDA	heavily glycosylated, >200 kD
GPI cell surface anchor?	no	yes	yes
Location of amyloid	entire structure is attached to the outer cell membrane	N-terminus of the protein	a threonine-rich repeat region adjacent to N-terminal immunoglobulin region
Agglutination or Aggregation of microbes?	yes	not known	yes
Amyloid fibers demonstrated?	yes	yes	yes
Attachment targets	host proteins, other E. coli	possibly glycophorin	peptides/proteins of other C. albicans or host tissue
Vaccine candidate	antibodies to curli can be detected in patients with disease (Bian et al. 2000)	yes, one of several surface proteins being included in potential vaccines	yes (Edwards 2012)