Insights from nature: A review of natural compounds that target protein misfolding in vivo

Abstract

Protein misfolding is fundamental to a number of human disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, prion diseases, Parkinson’s disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus. To date, there are still no cures for protein misfolding disorders. This is due to our limited understanding of the mechanisms involved in the misfolding process and limited high-resolution structures of in vivo and ex vivo misfolded proteins. Using natural compounds to stop, slow or reverse the protein misfolding and aggregation process may be a promising approach. Despite there being an array of encouraging in vitro studies, in vivo studies are limited. This review summarises natural compounds that target protein misfolding in vivo by reviewing studies across all protein misfolding disorders specifically in animal models and where available, clinical trials with human participants. Importantly, this review also identifies the morphology of the misfolded protein(s) targeted which is vital when designing new therapeutics. Accumulative evidence shows that some of these phenolic and non-phenolic compounds could be optimised as potential therapeutics for protein misfolding disorders.

Read full text: Cassandra Terry, Insights from nature: A review of natural compounds that target protein misfolding in vivo, Current Research in Biotechnology, Volume 2, 2020, Pages 131-144, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crbiot.2020.10.002