prion Hear it!

prion Definition

prion (prī′än′, prē′-)

noun

any of a group of tiny infectious agents composed mainly or entirely of protein: though lacking in demonstrable nucleic acid, prions are capable of self-replication and are thought to be the cause of various degenerative diseases of the nervous systems of vertebrates, as scrapie and kuru

Etymology: pr(oteinaceous) + i(nfectious) + -on

prion Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • call: The most common position among scientists is that the infective agent with BSE and CJD is a specific form of protein called a prion.

Adjective modifier

  • abnormal: He highlighted how this research has now demonstrated that the applications of Seprion can be expanded to the detection of abnormal prion in blood.
  • normal: By contrast PrPc, the normal prion, is ubiquitous; a cell membrane glycoprotein found on and in all cells studied.

Modifies a noun

  • protein: Often used to identify the prion protein in brain tissue.
  • disease: Some people referred to these teams will turn out not to have prion disease.
  • gene: A genetic disease in humans caused by an inherited mutation of the prion protein gene.
  • hypothesis: The prion hypothesis states that it is due to differences in the chemical or tertiary structure of the prion protein.
  • mutation: The cause of this novel agent is likely to have been a new prion mutation in cattle, or possibly sheep.
  • strain: This would be consistent with their being exposed to the same prion strain.

Noun used with modifier

  • scrapie: For example scientists so far have failed to find a scrapie prion nucleic acid.
  • sheep: The NIMR researchers set out to explore this using a fragment of the sheep prion thought to be important for aggregation.
  • host: Currently work in this group is focussed in two areas: Immunobiology of the normal host prion protein, PrPc.