4 ms·

The thing is (despite popular misconception that prions are common and many proteins that can turn into prions), there is only a specific protein that can be a

The thing is (despite popular misconception that prions are common and many proteins that can turn into prions), there is only a specific protein that can be a prion- the PrP protein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_prion_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_prion_protein Demonstrating "some other other protein behaving like a prion" is close to nobel prize territory.

DoingIsLearning 3y ago
Perhaps a first pass research question is: Do people who undergo spinal, brain, retinal surgery have a higher incidence of Alzheimer when compared with the rest of the population? Otherwise there is no point in chasing this "some other other protein behaving like a prion" avenue.
- carlmr 3y ago
  >Do people who undergo spinal, brain, retinal surgery have a higher incidence of Alzheimer when compared with the rest of the population? In that case scarring/inflammation might trigger the Alzheimer's though. The interesting part in this article is that the growth hormone was not injected into brain tissue I assume.
tim333 3y ago
There are quite a lot of diseases where a prion like mechanism is suspected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion#In_other_diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion#In_other_diseases ie. some protein other than PrP gets misfolded and then acts as a template to cause more misfolding. I've read up a bit on ALS as my sister has it and while it's not fully understood the most likely cause seems misfolding of a proteins called or TDP-43 or SOD1. Eg from a paper: >recent cultured cell line and animal model studies suggest that the misfolded forms of SOD1 and TDP-43 do self-propagate within neuronal cells and transmit to neighboring cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363329/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363329/
Thorrez 3y ago
Wikipedia seems to say there's another one: >All known mammalian prion diseases were caused by PrP until 2015, when a prion form of alpha-synuclein was hypothesized to cause multiple system atrophy (MSA).[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

DoingIsLearning 3y ago

Perhaps a first pass research question is: Do people who undergo spinal, brain, retinal surgery have a higher incidence of Alzheimer when compared with the rest of the population? Otherwise there is no point in chasing this "some other other protein behaving like a prion" avenue.

carlmr 3y ago
>Do people who undergo spinal, brain, retinal surgery have a higher incidence of Alzheimer when compared with the rest of the population? In that case scarring/inflammation might trigger the Alzheimer's though. The interesting part in this article is that the growth hormone was not injected into brain tissue I assume.

tim333 3y ago

There are quite a lot of diseases where a prion like mechanism is suspected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion#In_other_diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion#In_other_diseases ie. some protein other than PrP gets misfolded and then acts as a template to cause more misfolding. I've read up a bit on ALS as my sister has it and while it's not fully understood the most likely cause seems misfolding of a proteins called or TDP-43 or SOD1. Eg from a paper: >recent cultured cell line and animal model studies suggest that the misfolded forms of SOD1 and TDP-43 do self-propagate within neuronal cells and transmit to neighboring cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363329/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363329/

Thorrez 3y ago

Wikipedia seems to say there's another one: >All known mammalian prion diseases were caused by PrP until 2015, when a prion form of alpha-synuclein was hypothesized to cause multiple system atrophy (MSA).[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion