Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

misfold

American  
[mis-fohld] / ˌmɪsˈfoʊld /

verb (used without object)

misfolded, misfolding
  1. (of a protein) to fold into an incorrect structure: this can cause certain illnesses and medical conditions.


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

When proteins inside the eye misfold, cells can respond in several ways.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 8, 2025

CJD is the most prominent of the handful of diseases, all fatal, that result when prions, proteins of uncertain function that are abundant in the brain, misfold into an infective form that spreads widely.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 21, 2024

Specifically, amyloids occur when proteins misfold into twisted clumps and form long fibers, hindering cellular function.

From Salon ● Apr. 24, 2023

A mutation in the gene that provides instructions for producing the transthyretin protein causes it to misfold and deposit in the body’s tissue and organs, disrupting normal function.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 5, 2022

We do not know precisely how all of these proteins fold correctly, much less what goes wrong when they misfold.

From Scientific American ● Jun. 22, 2021

The E3 ligase enzyme cleans up the cell, tagging proteins that are damaged or misfolded for destruction.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

The investigators also identified additional partner proteins involved in folding and transporting proinsulin, as well as detecting and managing misfolded versions.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026

These problems develop as misfolded α-synuclein accumulates in motor neurons.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 12, 2026

It looked at 17 studies, involving 20,342 volunteers, of drugs that remove amyloid - a misfolded protein present in disease - from the brain.

From BBC ● May 22, 2026

When tau becomes misfolded, it starts clumping together into long, fibrous aggregates known as fibrils.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 15, 2025

Abacavir exposure triggered HLA misfolding in the ER, leading to ER stress.

From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024

But most is sporadic, due to out-of- the-blue misfolding of normal protein potentially caused by spontaneous mutations, chemical changes after prions are made inside the cell—or both.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 21, 2024

But there is a common denominator, namely protein misfolding and the occurrence of protein deposits in the brain.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 4, 2023

In the context of prolonging our health, this means that nature will have discovered many ways of combating the inherently destructive processes of life, such as free-radical damage and protein misfolding.

From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2022

Diminished expression of heat-shock protein genes in humans could raise the risk of illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease, in which the misfolding of proteins is implicated, the researchers report in their paper.

From Scientific American ● Mar. 22, 2022

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 14,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training