Eli5: As I understand, a prion is a misfolded protein. How does misfolding apparently give it the ability to break everything?

Question

Eli5: As I understand, a prion is a misfolded protein. How does misfolding apparently give it the ability to break everything?

In: 15

Answer 1

The key to prion diseases is that the misfolded protein also causes *other* proteins to misfold. So instead of just one rogue protein, you get an exponential growth of bad proteins, pretty much exclusively leading to death.