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Is this even possible? By what mechanism could a prion disease become airborne? Viruses have evolved to more easily infect cells in the respiratory tract for t
by relax88 5y ago
Is this even possible? By what mechanism could a prion disease become airborne?
Viruses have evolved to more easily infect cells in the respiratory tract for this specific purpose, but prions are much less sophisticated.
It seems there may be some evidence they can evolve, but enough to hijack cellular machinery in such a way that they could increase the concentration in the respiratory tract enough to transmit?
Seems a bit far fetched but I’m no prion expert.
- hammock 5y agoMaybe we should research it
- Aqueous 5y agoThis article from 2011 suggests aerosol transmission in mice: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020930/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020930/
- subroutine 5y agoTo attenuate fears a bit... Aerosol transmission was proven possible if you're sitting inside a vapor inhalation chamber equipped with a nebulizer spraying out liquid droplets containing >2% w/v brain homogenates from terminally scrapie-sick mice. Rest assured if you somehow get infected by PrPSc through airborne transmission, someone was trying really hard to make that happen.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago>a vapor inhalation chamber equipped with a nebulizer spraying out liquid droplets containing >2% w/v brain homogenates from terminally scrapie-sick mice I have never been more grateful to be a backend web developer where the worst risk to my health is a headache from flakey libraries. This sounds like a terrifying job!
- relax88 5y agoSo wear goggles and a mask while killing zombies… got it!
- learc83 5y agoThey used a nebulizer to spray infected brain matter into the air. There was no aerosolized mouse to mouse transfer.