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Prions and evolution

Discussion of everything related to the Theory of Evolution.

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Prions and evolution

Postby Sabby » Thu Dec 01, 2005 6:17 am

Prions have no genetic info, virtually invincible, and they kill the victim by turning their brain into mush. My question is, do prions have the capacity to become a living entity by evolving pseudo-genetic material (or another mechanism that provides a template for genetic variation to be introduced) that it can pass on, so it has the ability to survive off the victims rather than killing them, and become a brand new organism?
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Postby lara » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:27 am

prions though first were considered to be something out of ordinary are postulated to be abnormal products of genes that occur in ahealthy individual( in the brain,i guess). so they are products of genes gone the wrong way.though there are strange aspects as to how they transform other proteins prions are more of serious disease causing agents than active participants in evolution.actually aren't the genes responsible though we blame the protein??
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Postby victor » Sat Dec 03, 2005 2:10 pm

Prion is an infectious agent which only consist of protein. The fact that protein only withou nucleic acid can be infectious and resistant is truly shocking the scientists....
because prion is a protein so, it's resistant to the inactivation procedure to the nucleic acids...so, viral inactivation wouldn't work on it...
it's been reported that prion come from the normal cell's protein called PrPc (cellular)..PrPc is usually found along the nerve cells which is bound by glycoinositol phospholipid as the ligand. it's sensitive to the protease.

the modification of PrPc can cause a dissease and it's known as PrPsc (scarpie) which is resistant to protease and usually get accumulated inside the vesicle cytoplasm of an individu who suffer that dissease. It's been thought that if this king of protein (PrPsc) get subjected into a normal cell (PrPc), then the normal cell's protein would get changed into PrPsc..the mechanism for all of this is still a mistery..

Hope this helps,
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