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Article: 'Promiscuous Prion' Yields Clues To Transmission Across Species Barrier.
- Article from:
- Genomics & Genetics Weekly
- Article date:
- March 23, 2001
- Author:
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2001 MAR 23 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- 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 ...