Study Lends Support to Mad Cow Theory

[Sliverofhope]

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

Published: July 30, 2004

Scientists are reporting that, for the first time, they have made an artificial prion, or misfolded protein, that can, by itself, produce a deadly infectious disease in mice and may help explain the roots of mad cow disease.

The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, are strong evidence for the "protein-only hypothesis," the controversial idea that a protein, acting alone without the help of DNA or RNA, a cousin of DNA, can cause certain kinds of infectious diseases.

The concept was introduced in 1982 by Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurology professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the new study. The hypothesis is still unsettling to many scientists who have been taught that only bacteria and viruses containing genetic information can spread infectious diseases.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/national/30protein.html

[Th1onein]

1. This is frightening.

I wonder what other proteins can harm us?

[Occulus]

2. The question is, can they be rendered ineffective?

Biochemists on DU, please, if you're out there, hypothesize.

[Th1onein]

3. My hobby (ten years) is biochemistry.......

As far as I can understand it, prions are made by the brain, but when you have one that is misfolded, it "touches" another prion in your brain, and causes it to become misfolded, and that one "touches" another one, etc., etc., etc., like dominoes falling. Frightening, to think of like that, but that's what happens. I think that when you start feeding animals pieces of themselves, this is what you get. It's just not a good thing to eat your own dead.

[nodehopper]

4. I wonder why cockroaches can do it

I'm serious. I know it's gross, but cockroaches eat their dead, and they are, like, the most adapted, tough species around.

Perhaps that is just the case with primates?

[Cronus Protagonist]

5. Cockroaches don't have the same nervous system as an invertebrate

And theirs is very simple too.

[nodehopper]

10. I see. that makes sense. thanks!

[DrWeird]

21. BSE isn't caused by eating the dead.

It's just spread by eating the dead. Like HIV is not caused by unprotected sex, just spread by unprotected sex.

The protein involved with BSE is found in mammals.

[Sufi Marmot]

14. Rendered ineffective in what way?

Incineration would destroy any contaminated material.

In terms of treating prion diseases - is there any theoretical reason a small molecule drug couldn't be designed to bind specifically to the prion form of the prion-forming protien which would prevent it from catalyzing the formation of other prions?

-SM

Edited to add: designing an effetive drug wouldn't necessarily be an easy task, but is it at least a plausible strategy?

[CrispyQ]

29. I don't think incineration destroys BSE . . .

...but I could be wrong.

[DrWeird]

32. Prions are very tough to "kill"

Laboratories have to take extreme measures in working with them to prevent contamination. Autoclaves, which will kill any other kind of infectious disease, won't sterilize glassware that's come in contact with prions. Incineration can kill prions, but again, you've got to be careful.

[Sufi Marmot]

35. Do any peptides survive incineration?

I always assumed that if you got the temperature high enough, any protein would be destroyed and its constituent atoms oxidized. I'm not talking autoclaving here, but utter incineration.

-SM

[snowFLAKE]

41. Prions, Rats and Cockroaches

Are the Three Things can can and will withstand a Nuclear Holocaust.

There just ain't no destroying them.

On edit, based on the thread I got stuck in Yesterday (and is probably still around somewheres), Depleted Uranium might do the trick - that stuff is god-damn-freaking Dangerous!!!

[LibLabUK]

6. Well...

"I wonder what other proteins can harm us?"

There are loads and loads of proteins that can harm humans. All toxins are protein. They're produced by higher plants, animals, bacteria and fungi.

There really isn't a reason to be scared. They haven't yet shown conclusively that the prion thought to be responsible for BSE is harmful to humans, and the number of cases of nvCJD is miniscule compared to the number of people that have consumed beef. You're much more likely to get hit by lightning.

[robcon]

7. I disagree. BSE is harmful to humans.

My best friend from 6th grade died of BSE, which he contracted in England. There have clearly been cases of BSE in humans, and kuru, the mind-wasting disease in New Guinea, which is caused by a prion, was around for almost a hundred years, although no new cases have been reported in the last few decades. Thousands have died from kuru (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.)

"An elusive and unknown disease appeared in New Guinea in the early 1900’s. By the 1950’s anthropologists and government officials reported that this disease termed kuru was rampant among the South Fore. The South Fore were identified by Australian government officials in the 1950’s as a single census division consisting of approximately 8,000 individuals within the Okapa Subdistrict (Lindenbaum, 1979)..."

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic1248.htm

[LibLabUK]

9. Hmm

Kuru is spread by cannibalism, and was only ever seen in the the Fore tribe in New Guinea. There have been no new cases because the practice has been wiped out.

Kuru, whilst similar to CJD isn't the same disease.

There have been so few cases of vCJD, that it does not pose a risk to the public. The relative risk, when compared to other causes of death is miniscule. Far more people die each year from lightning strikes in the US than have ever died from vCJD.

The total number of deaths from suspected vCJD in the UK between 1990 and 2004 is: 142

The total number of cases (dead or alive) in the UK between 1990 and 2004 is: 147

source: http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/ - UK CJD surveillance unit


The average ANNUAL number of deaths from lightning in the US is: 107

The average ANNUAL number of lightning deaths or injuries in in the US is: 257

source: http://www.cdc.gov - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Whilst it is sad that your friend contracted vCJD, I find it remarkable that they managed to pin down the source of the infection. vCJD has a rather long incubation period, and BSE (if that is infact the causal agent) is present in beef herds all over the world, including the US and Canada, although this is not always admitted to.

[Swamp Rat]

47. I spent half this Summer studying cannibalism and Kuru

If you are interested in Shirley Lindenbaum's research on Kuru, here's an entry from an annotative bibliography I wrote for a term paper. My anthropology professor studied with Lindenbaum. I recommend her book "Kuru Sorcery":

Lindenbaum, Shirley
1979 Kuru Sorcery: Disease and Danger in the New Guinea Highlands. Palo Alto, California, Mayfield Publishing Company.

Lindenbaum spent over a decade studying the lives of the Fore people of Papua New Guinea and how the fatal degenerative disease “Kuru” affected their culture. She describes the causes, symptoms and epidemiology of Kuru possibly caused by cannibalism due to a lack of protein in the diet of females. The Fore people thought that Kuru was caused by a malignant sorcery, performed by a Kuru sorcerer. This research is the best and most obvious refutation of William Aren’s skepticism.

[Eurobabe]

8. yes and some things I have read recently

question the involvement of heavy metals in this process (esp. cadmium)

[Th1onein]

12. BSE is a very curious disease but I think we're being duped.....

Think about it: the first "infectious" disease ever found where the infective agent has no metabolism. It's not a virus, and it's not a bacteria. It has no nucleic acids, nothing to carry information in, although there seems to be differnt "strains" of it. It's JUST a protein, period.

AND this protein is made in normal, healthy tissues. But you can take this protein, pull out certain amino acids, to cause it to misfold, inject it into the brain of an animal, and voila! You've got a different "strain" of the "disease." This is just bullshit.

This is not an "infectious" disease. No way, no how. You're not going to turn back all these years of science to tell us that an infectious disease can be caused by something that has no nucleic acid. Nope. That's a crock.

You know what I think? I think this disease is not infectious. I think it is environmental. I think that we are poisoning our animals with pesticides, and causing this protein to be damaged, which sets up a chain reaction, which leads to what looks like an "infection."

[NickB79]

13. Look up the history of scrapie

Scrapie is a prion-based disease prevalent in sheep. It has been known about and documented for hundreds of years, particularly in Europe. What man-made pesticides were present in the environment of Europe in the 1600's and 1700's?

[Th1onein]

16. High manganese feeds/areas do the same thing that the

organophosphates do: knock the copper off of the protein, and replace it with manganese. This is a very likely explanation for scrapie. At the same time, it does nothing to negate the very real possibility that these pesticides are causing mad cow.

[Th1onein]

17. High manganese feeds/areas do the same thing that the

organophosphates do: knock the copper off of the protein, and replace it with manganese. This is a very likely explanation for scrapie. At the same time, it does nothing to negate the very real possibility that these pesticides are causing mad cow.

[Th1onein]

18. High manganese feeds/areas do the same thing that the

organophosphates do: knock the copper off of the protein, and replace it with manganese. This is a very likely explanation for scrapie. At the same time, it does nothing to negate the very real possibility that these pesticides are causing mad cow.

[Sufi Marmot]

15. Prions do carry information in the binary sense...

The prion-forming protein as a "normal" form and an infectious "prion" form, which can convert other "normal" molecules of the same protein to the prion form.

-SM

[Th1onein]

19. Of course, but that explanation takes the past 50 years of science

and throws it into the wastebasket, doesn't it?

[Sufi Marmot]

22. How so?

The fact that scientists have observed prion-forming behavior in certain proteins doesn't negate anything, it simply broadens our understanding of the etiology of certain diseases.

Prions aren't "alive" in the sense that they store information in nucleic acids (and use that information to duplicate themselves), but that doesn't negate the fact that viruses, prokaryotes, and eukaryotes do.

:shrug:

-SM

[DrWeird]

23. Not at all.

It fits perfectly fine with what we know about protein folding.

And it's been shown in the laboratory.

So what's the problem? Is it chemtrails that cause BSE?

[Th1onein]

24. Don't be rude.

No sense in that.

What I am saying is that you can't have an "infectious" disease when you have no nucleic acid. Period.

[Sufi Marmot]

26. Do prions conform to Koch's postulates?

Koch's Postulates

Since Koch's postulates were developed before prions were identified, replace the word "organism" with "agent".

-SM

[DrWeird]

28. Yes, with one exception.

Prions, like viruses, are not actually living organisms.

[Sufi Marmot]

31. Exactly...

My point is that the discovery of prions has expanded our definition of what constitutes an infectious agent, beyond that of nucleic acid containing entities.

[DrWeird]

33. Agreed.

They are, indeed, infectious agents.

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that something has to include nucleic acid to be considered an infectious disease.

[DrWeird]

27. Sure you can.

Prions. It's been shown.

Animals can get infected with prions, get sick, and die.

[foo_bar]

51. if it infects, it's infectious

While it isn't an "infectious organism" it's clearly the progenitor of "infectious disease".

[depakid]

20. Look at it as a form of chemical poisoning

You're stuck on the fact that infectuous agrents actually metabolize, carry information and reproduce which is something that has only been previously associated with DNA or RNA. A better analogue is to look at it as a form of organic chemical contamination- something akin to vitamin A poisoning that you might get from eating a carnivore's liver.

Also, there's no reason to rule out environmental causes; they may well be implicated in some of the so called spontaneous cases. The evidence isn't in on that-

[Th1onein]

25. EXACTLY! You said it better than I could. Thank you.

Why make the assumption that a protein can cause infection, when there are better explanations that don't fly in the face of what we've learned about infectious diseases over the past 50+ years?

[DrWeird]

30. But prions reproduce.

With help of the host organism, of course, but it's still reproduction. Kind of like viruses. And yes, it carries information. And I'd say prions have as much metabolism as viruses.

[Th1onein]

36. They don't reproduce........

If they reproduce, where is their genetic information? Prions affect each other, but the prions that they affect are already there.

[Sufi Marmot]

37. This is going to deteriorate into a semantic argument...

...over the definition of "reproduce". If you're arguing that prions, in order to create new prions, need as extant raw material the "normal" form of the prion protein, then by that definition they don't "reproduce". However the same thing could be said about viruses, as they require extant host cells to infect in order to replicate themselves. In the case of prions, the "information" required to transform normal protein into the prion form is stored in the 3D conformation of the prion protein. You're right, it's not genetic, as it's not nucleic acid dependent. But like viruses, can take raw material and generate new functional copies of themselves. And as is the case for viruses, production of those new copies has deleterious consequences for the host providing the raw materials.

-SM

[DrWeird]

39. If you inject a small number of prions into an animal...

that doesn't have any of those prions, in a certain amount of time you end up with a large number of the infectious prions.

[Th1onein]

42. Yes, but this is not reproduction.

eom

[DrWeird]

44. I dare say something that makes copies of itself...

is reproducing.

I suggest stop digging that hole.

[Th1onein]

45. Once again, you are getting rude. No sense in it.

I can reproduce a copy of my driver's license, but you and I both know it's not the same thing.

[Sufi Marmot]

34. The only issue I have with this analogy...

...is that chemical poisions don't amplify themselves. Ricin toxin, for instance, is catalytic - one ricin molecule can deactivate many ribosomes, but ricin can't make more copies of itself, while prions can. Which is why prions can infect but ricin just poisons.

-SM

[depakid]

43. This is true

The analogy might hold for the first few livers consumed, i.e., eat the liver of a person who ate a carnivore liver and you may also get vitamin A poisoning. But the effect dissipates.

I'm not sure that prions actually "make copies of themselves," at least they don't in the same manner that viri do. Rather, they alter the structure of existing protiens- and in that sense you corrrectly note that they do "carry information."

Really, all we have here is a sematical argument (although there may be an undercurrent of philosophy regarding what is actually "alive").

[Th1onein]

49. Given the evidence, I think that you should apply Occam's Razor...........

This is NOT an infectious disease. It has NONE of the components for metabolism, even AFTER it invades the cell. SOMETHING is damaging proteins which, in turn, have the ability to damage other proteins, like themselves.

This is really not that big of a deal. You see it all the time, in immunology.

[snowFLAKE]

50. You could have perhaps spared yourself some Public Embarrassment

By simply looking up the origins of the word "prion"

Derivation of Name:

Prion: singla for proteinaceous and infectious particle

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ICTVdb/Ictv/fs_prion.htm

Isn't it just a tad strange that you consider a disease caused by an infectious particle NOT (to be) an infectious disease.

EEEEHHHH, this science stuff is much to complicated for me!!

[daleo]

11. I hope someone doesn't try to turn this into a weapon

"Scientists are reporting that, for the first time, they have made an artificial prion, or misfolded protein, that can, by itself, produce a deadly infectious disease..."

PNAC seems to like this kind of stuff, if you read their publication "Rebuilding America's Defenses".

[vernon_nackulus]

38. what about an enzyme?

It would seem that if they now understand the protein enough to synthesize it, they could maybe possibly be able to come up with an enzyme to break it down one day. Does anyone know of a reason why not?

[DrWeird]

40. It's a perfectly good idea.

Very tricky getting it to work.

I'd think one of the major hurdles would be not targetting the prp protein.

[InkAddict]

46. Mycoplasma diseases

have been weaponized to weaken our immune systems so that other more readily identifiable chronic processes are blamed. The following article discusses how one was specifically engineered through Army (DARPA?). There's a lot more out there about various strains of this bug, and none of it looks good. Even perhaps the cause of Gulf War Syndrome -- apparently many common antibiotics don't touch it and actually can increase its virulence allowing other bugs to take the forefront of killing the victims. This also seems to be connected somehow to the "nanobacteria." Google Nanobac for additional info on that and see what you think. Meanwhile, here's the link about mycoplasma fermentans (incognito) strain affecting our brains.

http://www.whale.to/m/scott7.html

Then there's this, some of which may be crappola and some pertinent to the current state of affairs. WARNING: Not at first very complimentary to us Donkeys. But you see where things are going?

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/snowjob1.htm

[InkAddict]

48. Must I always be the knot at the end of the thread

or are you all still reading the links? :shrug:
\
:kick:

[NashVegas]

52. Well That's Just Spiffy

now, how about an anti-dote, you fools.