A prion (short for proteinaceous infectious particle) is a unique type of infectious agent, as it is made only of protein.

It is now commonly accepted that prions are responsible for a number of previously known but little-understood diseases generally classified under transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases (TSEs), including scrapie (a disease of sheep), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Chronic Wasting Disease, Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS), and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease).

For more information about the topic Prion, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy — Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs, also known as prion diseases) are a group of progressive conditions that affect the brain and ...  > read more

Amyloid — Amyloid describes various types of protein aggregations that share specific traits when examined microscopically. For a period, the scientific ...  > read more

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy — Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle. BSE has attracted wide ...  > read more

Encephalopathy — Encephalopathy is a nonspecific term describing a syndrome affecting the brain. Generally, it refers to involvement of large parts of the brain (or ...  > read more

Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Recommend this page on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Related Stories

Search ScienceDaily

Doggy Genes