News tagged with prion disease

Scientists show 'lifeless' prions capable of evolutionary change and adaptation

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have determined for the first time that prions, bits of infectious protein devoid of DNA or RNA that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease, are capable of Darwinian evolution.

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Dec 31, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (31) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Researchers find new piece in Alzheimer's puzzle

Yale researchers have filled in a missing gap on the molecular road map of Alzheimer's disease. In the Feb. 26 issue of the journal Nature, the Yale team reports that cellular prion proteins trigger the process by which ...

Medicine & Health / Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

created Feb 25, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 2

Prion proteins play powerful role in survival, evolution of wild yeast strains

Prions, the much-maligned proteins most commonly known for causing "mad cow" disease, are commonly used in yeast to produce beneficial traits in the wild. Moreover, such traits can be passed on to subsequent generations and ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 15, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Cellular stress can induce yeast to promote prion formation

It's a chicken and egg question. Where do the infectious protein particles called prions come from? Essentially clumps of misfolded proteins, prions cause neurodegenerative disorders, such as mad cow/Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jul 23, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Research identifies drug target for prion diseases, 'mad cow'

Scientists at the University of Kentucky have discovered that plasminogen, a protein used by the body to break up blood clots, speeds up the progress of prion diseases such as mad cow disease.

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Jan 10, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists show prions mutate and adapt to host environment

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have shown that prions, bits of infectious protein that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Dec 17, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Size of protein aggregates, not abundance, drives spread of prion-based disease

Mad Cow disease and its human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which are incurable and fatal, have been on a welcome hiatus from the news for years, but because mammals remain as vulnerable as ever to infectious diseases ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Oct 28, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study shows infectious prions can arise spontaneously in normal brain tissue

In a startling new study that involved research on both sides of the Atlantic, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute in Florida and the University College London (UCL) Institute of Neurology in England have shown ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Jul 26, 2010 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Study Offers Evidence That Spongiform Brain Diseases Are Caused By Aberrant Protein

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have determined how a normal protein can be converted into a prion, an infectious agent that causes fatal brain diseases in humans and mammals.

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Jan 28, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Dual role for immune cells in the brain

We all have at one time or another experienced the typical signs of an infection: the fever, the listlessness, the lack of appetite. They are orchestrated by the brain in response to circulating cytokines, ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jan 13, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Family's inherited condition links prion diseases, Alzheimer's

(PhysOrg.com) -- A laboratory connection between Alzheimer's disease and brain-wasting diseases such as the human form of mad cow disease has moved into the clinic for what is believed to be the first time, manifesting itself ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Dec 09, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

First direct information about the prion's molecular structure reported

(PhysOrg.com) -- A collaboration between scientists at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, San Francisco has led to the first direct information about the molecular structure of prions. ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Oct 05, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Scientists uncover evolutionary origins of prion disease gene

A University of Toronto-led team has uncovered the evolutionary ancestry of the prion gene, which may reveal new understandings of how the prion protein causes diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Sep 28, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Scientists devise accelerated method to determine infectious prion strains

Current tests to identify specific strains of infectious prions, which cause a range of transmissible diseases (such as mad cow) in animals and humans, can take anywhere from six months to a year to yield results - a time-lag ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created May 29, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 1

Study points to disruption of copper regulation as key to prion diseases

(PhysOrg.com) -- An investigation of a rare, inherited form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease suggests that disrupted regulation of copper ions in the brain may be a key factor in this and other prion diseases.

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Apr 17, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 1