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Facilitator Questions
The discovery that proteins can encode genetic information (in the form of prions) places them in the codical realm (with DNA and RNA). How do the ways in which prions and nucleic acids replicate and transmit information differ? How are they similar? What distinguishes prion from non-prion amyloids? Why aren’t all amyloids prions? The mammalian prion causes neurodegeneration and inexorable death. But in other cases prions seem to be benign or even beneficial. What is one reason why prions in yeast might be less toxic than their mammalian counterparts? Globular proteins typically have a single native conformation. On the other hand, many prion proteins can acquire multiple stable prion conformations, each giving rise to a phenotypic variant, or prion strain. How does this happen?
Might there be other mechanisms of prion formation? |
