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Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), also known as prion diseases, [1] are a group of progressive, incurable, and fatal conditions that are associated with the prion hypothesis and affect the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans, cattle, and sheep.
A prion / ˈ p r iː ɒ n / ⓘ is a misfolded protein that induces misfolding in normal variants of the same protein, leading to cellular death.Prions are responsible for prion diseases, known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSEs), which are fatal and transmissible neurodegenerative diseases affecting both humans and animals.
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), also known as subacute spongiform encephalopathy or neurocognitive disorder due to prion disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease. [ 4 ] [ 1 ] Early symptoms include memory problems, behavioral changes, poor coordination, and visual disturbances. [ 4 ]
Women and children usually consumed the brain, the organ in which infectious prions were most concentrated, thus allowing for transmission of kuru. The disease was therefore more prevalent among women and children. The epidemic likely started when a villager developed sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and died. When villagers ate the brain ...
The human PRNP protein which is subverted in prion disease can occur with either methionine or valine at amino acid 129, without any apparent physiological difference. Of the overall white population, about 40% have two methionine-containing alleles , 10% have two valine-containing alleles, and the other 50% are heterozygous at this position.
Chronic wasting disease is a progressive, fatal prion disease that affects the brain, spinal cord and many other tissues of farmed and free-ranging deer, elk, and moose.
Scrapie – fatal neurodegenerative disease in sheep, not transmissible to humans; Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad-cow disease) – fatal neurodegenerative disease in cows, which can be transmitted to humans by ingestion of brain, spinal, or digestive tract tissue of an infected cow; Kuru – TSE in humans, transmitted via funerary ...
Other human prion diseases include Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker Syndrome and Fatal Familial Insomnia, both of which, like CJD, are extremely rare and caused by errors in the PRNP gene as well ...