Iowa State University researchers have described with single-molecule precision how copper ions cause prion proteins to misfold and seed the misfolding and clumping of nearby prion proteins.
Jul 1, 2016
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Prion diseases are fatal and incurable neurodegenerative conditions of humans and animals. Yet, how prions kill nerve cells (or neurons) remains unclear. A study published on May 26, 2016 in PLOS Pathogens describes a system ...
May 26, 2016
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Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), or prion diseases, are a family of rare progressive, neurodegenerative illnesses that affect both humans and animals. TSE surveillance is important for public health and food ...
Apr 8, 2016
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Immunotherapy to ameliorate neurodegeneration by targeting brain protein aggregates with antibodies is an area of intense investigation. A study published on January 28th in PLOS Pathogens examines seemingly contradictory ...
Jan 28, 2016
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At times, to understand something well, it is useful to rebuild it from scratch. It happens with prions as well: in collaboration with the BESTA Institute in Milan, the Laboratory of Prion Biology at SISSA in Trieste assembled ...
Jan 4, 2016
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Prion diseases—incurable, ultimately fatal, transmissible neurodegenerative disorders of mammals—are believed to develop undetected in the brain over several years from infectious prion protein. In a new study, National ...
Sep 22, 2015
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For much of her adult life Valerie Sim has been fascinated by a disease very few in the world can claim to even begin to understand. Sim is one of Canada's foremost authorities on prion disease—more commonly known as bovine ...
Sep 3, 2015
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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 ...
Aug 31, 2015
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The discovery of antidepressant drugs in the 1950s led to the first biochemical hypothesis of depression, known as the monoamine hypothesis. This hypothesis proposes that an imbalance of certain brain chemicals is the key ...
Aug 13, 2015
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Rabbits have long been considered immune to prion disease, but recently scientists have shown that they can—under certain circumstances—get transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (or TSE, the scientific term for the ...
Aug 6, 2015
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