I remember hearing that prions like mad cow disease are misfolded proteins that manipulate other proteins they come into contact with. If that’s the case why can’t you use another prion to unfold it and restore it to normal?
In: Biology
In chemistry, there are some changes that are for all intents and purposes, one way tickets. As a classic example, think about cooking an egg. You didnt add anything to the egg except heat. All the original parts of egg are still there, but they’re arranged in such a way now that you cant “uncook” it in any practical sense. When you cook an egg you’re actually doing something sort of similar to what prions do to proteins. So while cooking an egg is as simple as “apply heat”, and folding a protein the wrong way is as simple as “apply prion”, reversing those changes requires much more effort to the point if being practically impossible.
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