One of the greatest mysterious in cellular biology has been given a new twist thanks to findings reported in Science. Researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute show that prions, proteins that transmit heritable information without DNA or RNA, can contribute to drug resistance and cellular adaptation. Their discovery of a yeast prion with these properties demonstrates the active role of the prion conversion in cellular fitness adaptation, providing new insights into the potentially broader function of prions in living organisms.
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Scientists have discovered that an important cellular quality control mechanism may actually be toxic to some brain cells during prion infection. The research proposes a new general mechanism of cellular dysfunction that can contrib... Read Post
Biochemists have identified a yeast protein called Lsb2 that can promote spontaneous prion formation. Prions can cause neurodegenerative disorders, such as mad cow/Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, in humans and animals. Read Post
One of the greatest mysterious in cellular biology has been given a new twist. Researchers now show that prions, proteins that transmit heritable information without DNA or RNA, can contribute to drug resistance and cellular adaptat... Read Post