prion
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.
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