In the tranquil expanses of North America's woodlands and grasslands, a silent but concerning phenomenon is unfolding: chronic wasting disease (CWD). The condition, often dubbed "zombie deer disease", is stealthily spreading ...
Ecology
Feb 19, 2024
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In Norway it is currently prohibited to provide animals with feed derived from the same animals' own "value chain." But this legislation is not based on science.
Agriculture
Feb 14, 2024
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30
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible, neurodegenerative disorder in deer that causes inability to eat, stumbling, drooling, and lack of fear of humans, and in all cases is ultimately fatal. "You can have deer ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 12, 2024
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14
In a study published in Science Advances, researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE-Berlin) shed light on the intricate dance between the prion ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Dec 1, 2023
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52
Using a larger proportion of each individual salmon here in Norway will make the aquaculture industry less dependent on importing ingredients for salmon feed. Using locally produced raw materials is also good for the environment.
Plants & Animals
Oct 12, 2023
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A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison finds that ticks can harbor transmissible amounts of the protein particle that causes chronic wasting disease (CWD), implicating the parasites as possible ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 7, 2023
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142
Chronic wasting disease, the prion disease affecting white-tailed deer and other cervids, is spreading. With documented cases in 29 U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, three Scandinavian countries, and South Korea, free-ranging ...
Ecology
Oct 11, 2022
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9
Prion diseases, such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease"), are lethal neurodegenerative infectious diseases that affect humans and other mammals and for which there is currently no cure.
Biochemistry
Sep 19, 2022
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19
In a new study, researchers from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have identified the structure of protein fibrils linked to a hereditary form of human prion disease. This insight, they say, reveals ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 12, 2022
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142
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an infectious disease that affects the central nervous systems of animals, typically affecting cervids such as deer, elk and moose.
Ecology
Jun 28, 2022
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7
A prion (pronounced /ˈpriː.ɒn/ ( listen)) is an infectious agent that is composed of protein. To date, all such agents that have been discovered propagate by transmitting a mis-folded protein state; the protein does not itself self-replicate and the process is dependent on the presence of the polypeptide in the host organism. The mis-folded form of the prion protein has been implicated in a number of diseases in a variety of mammals, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as "mad cow disease") in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. All known prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue, and all are currently untreatable and are always fatal. In general usage, prion refers to the theoretical unit of infection. In scientific notation, PrPC refers to the endogenous form of prion protein (PrP), which is found in a multitude of tissues, while PrPSC refers to the misfolded form of PrP, that is responsible for the formation of amyloid plaques that lead to neurodegeneration.
Prions are hypothesized to infect and propagate by refolding abnormally into a structure which is able to convert normal molecules of the protein into the abnormally structured form. All known prions induce the formation of an amyloid fold, in which the protein polymerises into an aggregate consisting of tightly packed beta sheets. This altered structure is extremely stable and accumulates in infected tissue, causing tissue damage and cell death. This stability means that prions are resistant to denaturation by chemical and physical agents, making disposal and containment of these particles difficult.
Proteins showing prion-type behavior are also found in some fungi and this has been important in helping to understand mammalian prions. However, fungal prions do not appear to cause disease in their hosts and may even confer an evolutionary advantage through a form of protein-based inheritance.
The word prion is a compound word derived from the initial letters of the words proteinaceous and infectious, with -on added by analogy to the word virion.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
