"Normal" Prions May Protect Myelin

thomst writes "Nature Neuroscience just published an online article about the function of 'normal' prions in protecting myelin, the substance that sheathes and protects sensory and motor nerves. The international study (which has 11 authors) concluded that 'normal' (i.e., not mis-folded) prions may form a protective coat around myelin. The researchers found that Prnp -/- mice (mice with the gene for prions knocked out) consistently developed progressive demyelination, inevitably leading to persistent polyneuropathy by 60 weeks of age. Their data suggest that damage to myelin sheaths cause normal prions to cleave, and the resulting prion fragments activate Schwann cells, which are known to play a part in myelin repair. This research might eventually lead to possible treatments for progressive polyneuropathies in humans, including those mediated by Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and even diabetes."

Comments

Re:Oops...

[jollyreaper]

I kept reading "Prisons" instead of Prions and was dumbfounded beyond belief.

I looked away from my screen for a minute imagining the possibilities. Then I looked back, noticed my mistake, and felt like an idiot.

And thats why I'm posting; I'd like to share my idiocy with you.

And I'm thinking "I know hybrid cars are supposed to be good for the environment but aren't they overselling it a bit much? And who makes the Prion anyway, is that Dodge or Toyota?"

Re:Prions

[girlintraining]

I think I understand, but I also think a car analogy is in order.

Fine. *mutter, mutter* Your car is just a metaphor for a folding protein called a prion. Except your car isn't a car, but a robot. We'll call it a transformer. Now there are good transformers, and Decepti--I mean, bad robots. The bad robots are bad because they just don't know when to stop. And they want to take over everything using a device called the AllSpark. The AllSpark is the source of ultimate power for the robots good and bad. Except the AllSpark is really nucleic acid. The only way to beat the Deceptic--I mean, bad prions, is to destroy the AllSp--er, nucleic acid. But that would be bad, because without the nucleic acid, none of the cars would run, nobody would get anywhere, and then anarchy would result and the world would end.

Not as bad as thinking...

[Shikaku]

"You must construct additional prions!"