Art and Science of Laboratory Medicine

Art and Science of Laboratory Medicine

Saturday, January 25, 2014

The shape of infectious prions

Prions are unique infective agents -- unlike viruses, bacteria, fungi and other parasites, prions do not contain either DNA or RNA. Despite their seemingly simple structure, they can propagate their pathological effects like wildfire, by "infecting" normal proteins. PrPSc (the pathological form of the prion protein) can induce normal prion proteins (PrPC) to acquire the wrong conformation and convert into further disease-causing agents.
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The shape of infectious prions



























Source: Science Daily
Image credits: SISSA



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