Eli5 what are prions and how do they misfold and cause diseases?
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Proteins are very long molecules in your body that do various jobs. For instance, hemoglobin holds onto oxygen so that it can be transported around your body.
The shape and composition of a protein determines what it can do. Certain shapes are considered stable and useful. Many shapes are unstable, and degrade into a stable form or just disintegrate. Rather rarely, however, a protein will be formed in a wrong configuration that is stable. Even worse, that protein can make other proteins also malformed. The body doesn’t recognize proteins as bad, so it can’t recognize a problem, nor does it really have the tools to clean it up. The bad proteins build up, usually in the nervous system and killing cells which causes holes in brain tissue. Obviously, holes in your brain is not good, leading to all sorts of neurological issues and eventually death.
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