Sentences with phrase «infectious prions»
The phrase "infectious prions" refers to abnormal proteins that can cause diseases in the brain. These proteins can spread and cause other proteins in the brain to become misfolded, leading to various neurological disorders. Full definition
Soto's team analyzed the retention of infectious prion protein and infectivity in wheat grass roots and leaves incubated with prion - contaminated brain material and discovered that even highly diluted amounts can bind to the roots and leaves.
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FFI belongs to a class of infectious prion diseases that include Mad Cow Disease.
The new findings enhance scientific understanding of where infectious prion diseases might take hold in the brain and provide possible targets for treatment.
A UTHealth team in Houston led by Claudio Soto, Ph.D., has discovered that grass plants can transport infectious prions.
In a new study, National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists report they can detect infectious prion protein in mouse brains within a week of inoculation.
Remarkably, as different as each disease is, they both spontaneously generate infectious prions.
The study suggests how infectious prions replicate by converting non-infectious, cellular versions into copies of themselves.
«Next we plan to take a closer look at the system we used to create infectious prions to identify the molecular mechanisms behind the change,» Ma says.
They showed that injecting brain extracts containing infectious prions into healthy animals seeds disease.
Most people associate prion diseases with the brain, although scientists have found abnormal infectious prion protein in other organs, including the spleen, kidney, lungs and liver.
Vaccines have treated infectious prions in mice, raising hopes of a cure for the deadly human version of «mad cow disease».
Prion diseases — incurable, ultimately fatal, transmissible neurodegenerative disorders of mammals — are believed to develop undetected in the brain over several years from infectious prion protein.
By examining mouse brain tissue, the researchers measured and detected new infectious prion protein three days after infection on the outside walls of capillaries and other blood vessels at the injection site.
The ability of prions to break the transmission barrier between species is determined by compatibility between the prion protein of a given host and the misfolded, infectious prion particle.
Grass plants can bind, uptake and transport infectious prions, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
In prior studies, it took about six weeks to detect infectious prion protein.
The team also learned that infectious prion proteins could be detected in plants exposed to urine and feces from prion - infected hamsters and deer.
Some prion diseases are caused by an inherited genetic mutation, while others are caused by exposure to infectious prions in food.
«By altering single amino acid codons in the gene coding for the prion protein, in the natural context of the genome — no over expression or other artificial manipulations — we can produce completely different neurodegenerative diseases, each of which spontaneously generates an infectious prion agent,» says Whitehead Member Susan Lindquist.
The model can give insights into how the infectious prion protein propagates.
The infectious prion protein is a misfolded protein, which makes it very difficult to purify and study.
After three years of working, developing techniques and processing data the results in the paper are a three - dimensional model for the structure of the infectious prion protein.
«We know the structure of the healthy normal cellular form of the protein, but we knew very little about the infectious prion protein and how it propagates.
This was the first time this technology has been used on amyloid fibrils of the infectious prion, which are a special form of clumped - together proteins that form fibrils.
Groundbreaking research from the University of Alberta has identified the structure of the infectious prion protein, the cause of «mad cow disease» or BSE, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk and Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease in humans, which has long remained a mystery.
The antibodies most likely work by binding to infectious prions, preventing them from forming toxic clumps, he explains.
These mice survived about 600 days after exposure to infectious prions — well into old age for a mouse.
Scientists already had hints that the protein in question, amyloid - beta, behaves like an infectious prion, a misshapen protein that coaxes other proteins to misfold and spread from cell to cell.
«Grass plants can transport infectious prions.»
12/5/2008 Mutant Proteins Result in Infectious Prion Disease in Mice A worldwide group of scientists has created an infectious prion disease in a mouse model, in a step that may help unravel the mystery of this progressive disease that affects the nervous system in humans and animals.