Functional Amyloids Used by Organisms: A Lesson in Controlling Assembly

Amyloid has been studied primarily in relation to the disease states that it causes in humans, but in recent years, a range of proteins have been identified that self-assemble to a β-sheet rich fold as part of their native function and as such have been termed as functional amyloids.1 These functional amyloids fulfil a range of tasks within cells and extracellularly. In this paper, we will discuss the concept of functional amyloids, specifically in the sense of a structural component for the producing organism. Additionally, we will discuss how these organisms have controlled amyloid formation so that it only occurs at specific locations and at a desired time.