Patent ID: 6846640

Claim:
A method for identifying modulators of β-amyloid aggregation comprising: i) providing a substrate attached to streptavidin, wherein the streptavidin binds with biotin; ii) providing a polypeptide composition comprising β-amyloid monomers, wherein at least some of the β-amyloid monomers are modified to comprise biotin; iii) incubating the polypeptide composition in the presence and absence of a test agent, under conditions in which the β-amyloid monomers aggregate into multimers; iv) contacting the polypeptide composition to the substrate attached to the streptavidin under conditions wherein biotin binds to streptavidin; whereby β-amyloid or multimers that comprise biotin bind to the streptavidin of the substrate; v) contacting the substrate with a detecting agent comprising the streptavidin, wherein the detecting agent binds to biotin on β-amyloid aggregates that are bound to the substrate; and vi) measuring β-amyloid aggregation by detecting the detecting agent bound to β-amyloid aggregates bound to the substrate, wherein differential β-amyloid aggregation measurements in the presence versus the absence of a test agent identifies the test agent as a modulator of β-amyloid aggregation.