Artificial Prion Created

jabberjaw writes "Nature is reporting that researchers at the University of California San Diego have created a synthetic prion which, when injected into mice will bring about symptoms similar to those displayed by cattle suffering from bovine spongiform encephalopathy, aka mad cow disease. The researchers first crafted healthy prion proteins using bacteria. They then shook these proteins until they resembled the tangled structure of an unhealthy prion. Afterwords, these prions were injected into the brains of mice who fell ill two years later. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with this field of research would care to fill us in on the details as the article was rather light."

Comments

this is truely scary

[airbie]

because prions are more basic and fundamental than even germs/viruses. most modern methods of treating diseases and fighting virus involve disrupting the replication process of the virus/germs, usually by the means of inhibiting certain proteins. however prions themselves are malformed proteins that malform other good proteins. this mechanism is quite hard to stop because it is so simple, there is no complicated repoduction chain to disrupt like a virus. there is only one way to stop this chain, which is to basically burn the protein to a crisp.

Re:whoo hoo?

[MadBiologist]

That's most likely... by creating a model disease in a biological system, different drugs can be tried out on it to test efficacy.

There are all sorts of protocols like this already... ie, EAE (Experimental Allergic EncephaloMyelitis) where they give mice... um... artificial MS, then test drug canidates out on them to see what the effect is. It's not very nice to watch.

That's why I'm glad that I'm in molecular studies. However, it's done to help people with these diseases, and animal reseach is really the only way to conduct some of these tests.

Peace...