Treatment with indigo plant (Polygonum tinctorium Lour) improves serum lipid profiles in Wistar rats fed a high-fat diet.

We investigated the effects of Polygonum tinctorium Lour (PTL), a plant commonly known as indigo, on biological parameters in an animal model of high-fat diet-induced obesity. Wistar rats fed a high-fat diet and treated with PTL showed lower serum levels of triglycerides and total cholesterol levels and a higher serum levels of HDL cholesterol than those in Wistar rats fed a high-fat diet without PTL treatment. The weight of mesenteric fat in PTL-treated rats was decreased compared to that in control rats not treated with PTL.

Peptide sequences converting polyglutamine into a prion in yeast.

Amyloids are ordered protein aggregates composed of cross-β sheet structures. Amyloids include prions, defined as infectious proteins, which are responsible for mammalian transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, and fungal prions. Although the conventional view is that typical amyloids are associated with nontransmissible mammalian neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, increasing evidence suggests that the boundary between transmissible and nontransmissible amyloids is ambiguous.