Sentences with phrase «yeast prion»
A "yeast prion" refers to an abnormal form of protein in yeast cells that can cause other proteins to also become abnormal. This can lead to changes in the yeast's behavior or function. Full definition
The helpful yeast prion protein and the dangerous mammalian prion protein have virtually nothing in common.
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Study coauthor Susan Lindquist of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and her colleagues devised a way to test plant proteins for prion power by swapping bits of them into yeast prions.
Sondheimer focused his search on a handful of suspect proteins that possessed regions that looked a lot like the prion - determining regions of known yeast prions Sup35 and Ure2.
Not only that, but in the current issue of Molecular Cell, the Lindquist lab has identified a new yeast prion and shown that a segment of this protein also confers prionlike activity.
Because yeast prions act much like mammalian prions and are easier to study, scientists hope they will offer clues about how these mis - folding chain reactions get started and how they might be stopped.
In a complimentary paper coming out in Molecular Cell, Lindquist and graduate student Neal Sondheimer describe a newly discovered yeast prion.
«The new prion had the same characteristics as yeast prions,» said Lindquist.
In her January 28, 2000 Science paper, Lindquist and postdoctoral fellow Liming Li created a novel prion by taking the prion - determining part of Sup35, a known yeast prion, and linking it to a mammalian hormone response factor.
Yeast prions were subsequently shown to be controlled by Hsp104 levels, «thereby linking the phenomenon of yeast prion with mitochondrial synthesis,» Chacinska says.
In their study, the team around research group leader Prof. Simon Alberti from the MPI - CBG focused on the yeast prion protein Sup35, which has a long - standing history as a role model for prion research.
The yeast prion model, notes Yale University neuropathologist Laura Manuelidis, «has nothing to do with infectious disease.»
Yeast can also carry prions, and the duo fused part of a yeast prion protein called Sup35 to a normal rat protein that controls the transcription of DNA into RNA.
Meanwhile, Eisenberg and his group zoomed in on a yeast prion, discovering that it had interlocking teeth like a zipper, which contorted the proteins into a ropelike shape.
The yeast prion amyloid fibers are also remarkably resilient, able to withstand exposure to extended high temperatures, high and low salt, strong alkalis and acids, and 100 percent ethanol.
Researchers have combined sophisticated biochemical and imaging techniques to get a glimpse of the stepwise assembly of amyloid fibers in a yeast prion protein.
Yeast prions are unrelated to the mammalian prions, and don't harm humans or yeast.
University of Chicago researchers appear to have found the answer, and it has broad and unexpected implications: the yeast prion seems to play an adaptive role and may greatly influence evolutionary processes.
Other members of the research teams include: on chaperone interactions with yeast prion, Eric Schirmer, PhD, a graduate student in Lindquist's lab; and on interactions with mammalian prions, Shubhik DebBurman, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in the lab, and Gregory Raymond and Byron Caughey, from the Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases, NIH / NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, Montana.
Mounting evidence has linked Hsp 104 to a role in regulating whether the yeast prion folds into its normal working or abnormal non-functional conformation.
Researchers from the Howard Hughes Institute at the University of Chicago have discovered that a chaperone protein from yeast, which helps proteins to change their shapes, controls a new, protein - only form of inheritance, called a yeast prion.
Although the yeast sup35 protein and the mammalian prion protein are not at all related to each other — the yeast pose no risk to consumers of bread or beer — the researchers think that in - depth analysis of the yeast prion - like elements and other proteins that help them fold up may lead to new approaches to therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.
The primary structure of the mammalian prion protein is completely different from that of the yeast prion protein.
Unlike mad - cow prions, the yeast prion doesn't kill cells, but it does alter their appearance and activity.