Amyloidogenesis is neither accelerated nor enhanced by injections of preformed fibrils in mice transgenic for wild-type human transthyretin: the question of infectivity.

It is possible to accelerate amyloid formation in both the Senescence Accelerated Mouse, where ApoAIIC is the precursor, and in marine Amyloid A (AA) by the injection of preformed fibrils in the former and amyloid enhancing factor, which appears to consist of AA fibril fragments, in the latter. These two observations have raised the question of whether marine amyloids, like scrapie, are infectious. Injection of preformed fibrils into mice transgenic for many copies of the human wild-type transthyretin gene do not result in acceleration or enhancement of the process of deposition or the conversion of non-Congophilic deposits to fibrils.