Title: misfolded protein
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - misfolded protein
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.11878
Status: current

Definition
Protein that has the same amino acid sequence as the normal, functional protein but exhibits a deviant tertiary structure and lacks normal function.

Note
Common neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer disease) are associated with the formation, aggregation and deposition of misfolded proteins in neurons.

Related Terms
- Alzheimer disease: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11574
- inclusion body: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11828
- neurodegenerative diseases: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11926

Source
- PAC, 2015, 87, 841. 'IUPAC Glossary of terms used in neurotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2015)' on page 882 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2015-0103)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11878/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11878/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11878/xml

Citation: Citation: 'misfolded protein' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.11878
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-05-10T12:34:37+00:00