What exactly are prion diseases and how do people get them?

Question

What exactly are prion diseases and how do people get them?

In: 1

Answer 1

Prion diseases are mis-folded proteins (usually left-handed folds). They can replace or displace right-handed proteins, and they don’t “work” the same way as the proteins they displace. That causes all sorts of weird stuff to happen in the body, and we can’t (yet) even *make* left-handed proteins in a lab, so it’s very, very hard to study them and develop real cures. Mostly, we just have treatments (some more effective than others)

At least, that’s my understanding of it. I could be way off, I’m not a molecular biologist

Answer 2

Prion diseases are mis-folded proteins (usually left-handed folds). They can replace or displace right-handed proteins, and they don’t “work” the same way as the proteins they displace. That causes all sorts of weird stuff to happen in the body, and we can’t (yet) even *make* left-handed proteins in a lab, so it’s very, very hard to study them and develop real cures. Mostly, we just have treatments (some more effective than others)

At least, that’s my understanding of it. I could be way off, I’m not a molecular biologist