Novel Proteinaceous Infectious Particles Cause Scrapie

  • Stanley B. Prusiner
    Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry and Biophysics at the School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco 94143.

抄録

<jats:p> After infection and a prolonged incubation period, the scrapie agent causes a degenerative disease of the central nervous system in sheep and goats. Six lines of evidence including sensitivity to proteases demonstrate that this agent contains a protein that is required for infectivity. Although the scrapie agent is irreversibly inactivated by alkali, five procedures with more specificity for modifying nucleic acids failed to cause inactivation. The agent shows heterogeneity with respect to size, apparently a result of its hydrophobicity; the smallest form may have a molecular weight of 50,000 or less. Because the novel properties of the scrapie agent distinguish it from viruses, plasmids, and viroids, a new term "prion" is proposed to denote a small <jats:italic>pro</jats:italic> teinaceous <jats:italic>in</jats:italic> fectious particle which is resistant to inactivation by most procedures that modify nucleic acids. Knowledge of the scrapie agent structure may have significance for understanding the causes of several degenerative diseases. </jats:p>

収録刊行物

  • Science

    Science 216 (4542), 136-144, 1982-04-09

    American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

被引用文献 (126)*注記

もっと見る

キーワード

詳細情報

問題の指摘

ページトップへ