Fig. 7. Possible mechanisms of PNF-formation at hydrolysis-promoting conditions. The protein must be (partially) denatured to form fibrils. Chains with high propensity to form amyloid structure may form PNFs from the full-length protein (lower pathway). These fibrils typically do not have the whole chains in the core and disordered parts could be cleaved off after PNF formation. An alternative route involves hydrolysis of the protein chain into peptides before assembly (upper pathway). Some of the peptides may have high propensity to self-assemble into nanofibrils.
