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
this isn’t exactly ELI5, but basically when the prion causes a misfold, it makes the protein go into a low energy confirmation. Thnk about spilling a glass of milk: before the milk is spilled, it’s organized in the glass. When it’s spilled, it’s chaotic and all over. It would take a lot of energy to get it all back into the glass just the way it was. It’s more stable out of the glass than when glass was there. It’s the same with the protein, since it’s more stable misfolded it would take a pretty powerful enzyme to correct it, and how do we even know what’s ‘correct’?
If my answer is weird or wrong someone please let me know, that’s how I understood it from biochem but it’s been a hot minute.
Imagine you made a paper plane, and someone came over and crumpled it into a ball. Can you un-crumple it? Yes. Can you make it a plane again? Well…maybe, with a lot of time and effort.
Proteins may need chaperones, which are other proteins, to fold properly. These chaperones make sure that the protein is the shape it is supposed to be – a bit like you making that paper plane. Each protein has a different function, and therefore needs to be folded a different way. To re-fold it, you might need to identify, recreate, and reintroduce chaperones – and if important molecules like sulfur, nitrogen, etc. are lost in the protein, you’d need to find a nontoxic way to add them back on. You would also have to undo the incorrect folding without messing up the other proteins around it. In labs, we use things that break down bonds between proteins so that they lose their shape (denaturing), and when we do this, all of the proteins denature. You would have to make something that can target just that one specific misfolded protein and not denature other proteins, and I have no idea if that’s possible with the technology we have right now.
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