Prion Disease

'Promiscuous Prion' Yields Clues To Transmission Across Species Barrier

Published in TB and Outbreaks Week, March 20th, 2001

By stitching together segments of two species of infectious yeast proteins, called prions, researchers have produced a hybrid prion that can adopt two distinct infectious shapes.

This ability to change conformation allows the hybrid prion to bridge a species barrier and "infect" proteins from two distantly related species of yeast. This phenomenon, say the scientists, may be a key to understanding how prions derived from cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease," can hop the species barrier and infect humans.

The ability of a single prion protein to fold into multiple infectious forms means that knowledge of...

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Source: TB and Outbreaks Week (2001-03-20)

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