Prions: A Novel Infectious Pathogen Essay -- Medicine Medical Illnesse

Prions A Novel Infectious Pathogen Prions are novel, transmissible pathogens that differ from viroids, viruses, parasites, fungi, and bacteria, both with respect to the diseases they father and their structure . They are capable of causing degenerative diseases of the centra1 nervous system both in animals anal in humans. Kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakobs disease (CJD) and Gerstmann-Straussler-Sheinkers (GSS) syndrome deck the acquired, sporadic, and genetic manifestation of the -human prion diseases. These transmissible pathogens in any case cause Scrapie of sheep and goats. Bovine spongiform enphalopathy,(BSE) in cows and transmissible mink encephalopathy, and chronic wasting disease (CWD) of captive scuff deer and elk which are thought to result from the ingestion of Scrapie infested animal products (Pruisner, 1991). In addition to these diseases, certain neuropathological changes associated with scrapie disease seem to correlate well with comparable changes observed in Alzheimers pati ents (Duguid 1989). These similarities have been attributed to similar alterations in gene expression in both of the diseased states (Duguid, 1989). First, in addition to the unique diseases that they cause, prions also exhibit certain novel molecular and structural properties which further differentiate them from other infectious pathogens. The unusual biological properties were first unraveled through experiments performed on scrapie -infested sheep. The disjointed scrapie agent from these sheep seem to exhibit certain unusual properties. One such property is the scrapie-agents resistance to nuclease digestion. After being subjected to several rounds of digestion with various nucleases including micrococcal nuclsase, nuclease - P, and deoxyribonucl... ...60-7264.(a) 7. Gabzion, R., McKinley, M. P., Groth, D., Westaway, D., DeArmond, S. J., Carlson, G. A., Prusiner, S. B. (1989) Immunoaffinity purification and neutralisation of scrapie prions. Prog. Clin. Biol. Res. 317 583-600. 8. Hsiao, K., Zeev, M., Kahana, E., Cass, C., Kahana.. I., Avrahemi, D., Scarlato, G.. Abramsky, O., Prusiner, S. B., and Gabizon, R. (1991) Mutation of the Prion Protein in Libyan Jews with Creutzfeldt-Jakobs disease. N. Engl. J. Med., 324 1091-1097. 9. Prusiner, S. B. (1991) Molecular Biology of Prion Disease. Science, 252 1515-1522. 10. Prusiner, S. B. (1982) Novel proteinaceous infectious particles cause scrapie. Science,216 136-144. 11. Stahl, N. and Pruisner, S. B. (1991) Prions and prion proteins. FASEB J., 5 27992807. 12. Weissmann, C. (1991) A unified theory of prion propagation. Nature., 352 679-683.