Could They All Be Prion Diseases?

摘要

The idea that proteins can be agents of disease was once heretical, but two Nobel Prizes later all but the most die-hard skeptics have been convinced that misfolded proteins called prions are the cause of several neuro-degenerative disorders in humans and other animals. In disorders such as scrapie, mad cow disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, misfolded molecules of a naturally occurring protein act like bad role models, encouraging normally folded proteins to misfold and clump together. As aggregates of misfolded proteins spread through the brain, nerve cells stop working properly and eventually die.