Current Issue : October-December Volume : 2012 Issue Number : 4 Articles : 1 Articles
Prions are the recent addition to the list of pathogens causing dreadful diseases in animals and humans. Prions are the protein particles which are infective in nature that have got public health importance. Prions lack nucleic acids and therefore are resistant to many antiviral agents. Both in animals and humans, prions cause a group of diseases known as “transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs)”. Misfolding of the normal cellular proteins leads to pathological prion proteins. Prions re-wrote the history of pathogenesis by being the first infective particles that do not possess a nucleic acid. Prions become pathogenic when the cellular prion proteins which have α-helix structure convert into β-pleated sheets and accumulate in the brain becoming neurotoxic. Various diseases of the prions of domestic animals and humans are listed in this article. Lot of chemotherapeutic agents and immunizing methods are tested experimentally on prion infected subjects or cell cultures. Some of the effective methods of treating or immunizing against prion diseases were discussed in this review....
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