Medical research

Small loop in human prion protein prevents chronic wasting disease

Chronic wasting disease (CWD)—an infectious disease caused by prions—affects North American elk and deer, but has not been observed in humans. Using a mouse model that expresses an altered form of the normal human prion ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Scientists show copper facilitates prion disease

(Medical Xpress) -- Many of us are familiar with prion disease from its most startling and unusual incarnations—the outbreaks of “mad cow” disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) that created a crisis in ...

Medical research

Impact of prion proteins on the nerves revealed for the first time

When prion proteins mutate, they trigger mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Although they are found in virtually every organism, the function of these proteins remained unclear. Researchers from the University of Zurich ...

Medical research

First all-human mouse model of inherited prion disease

Human prion diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker disease (GSS). A new study in the open-access journal PLOS Biology reports a significant advance in the development of mouse ...

Medical research

The flexible tail of the prion protein poisons brain cells

For decades, there has been no answer to the question of why the altered prion protein is poisonous to brain cells. Neuropathologists from the University of Zurich and University Hospital Zurich have now shown that it is ...

Medical research

Prion-like proteins drive several diseases of aging

Two leading neurology researchers have proposed a theory that could unify scientists' thinking about several neurodegenerative diseases and suggest therapeutic strategies to combat them.

Medical research

'Good' prion-like proteins boost immune response

(Medical Xpress) -- A person's ability to battle viruses at the cellular level remarkably resembles the way deadly infectious agents called prions misfold and cluster native proteins to cause disease, UT Southwestern Medical ...

Neuroscience

Receptor may aid spread of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in brain

(Medical Xpress)—Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a way that corrupted, disease-causing proteins spread in the brain, potentially contributing to Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's ...

Neuroscience

New type of prion may cause, transmit neurodegeneration

Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), a neurodegenerative disorder with similarities to Parkinson's disease, is caused by a newly discovered type of prion, akin to the misfolded proteins involved in incurable progressive brain diseases ...

page 3 from 11