Two Articles on Different Strains of Prion Disease

[Guest guest]

Ref: The Economist, October 3, 1998

Ref: Chemical and Engineering News, October 5, 1998

Ref: Two Articles in recent issues of Nature Medicine

The Economist has an article on the different strains of prion caused disease,

some information on how they work, progress, and the value of the new 8 hour

test for detecting the prions. The UCSF work on the different conformational

forms of the same protein cause the different variations of the disease. There

appears to be different malformations of the prion, these each replicate

indentically, and each cause different symptoms and possibley a different strain

of the disease. An article in Nature Medicine by Jiri Safar supports these

theories.

The Chemical and Engineering News article discusses the same test for the

different strains of prions, and different conformations of the prion to be

responsible for the variations in the disease. o Aguzzi of the University

Hospital of Zurich supports the misfolding of the PrP is connected to the strain

phenomenon of the disease (see Nature Med.). The tests are intended to be

quantitative by the different conformations, thereby allowing studies to

correlate concentration with infectivity. This could allow for testing of low

doses and be able to evaluate healthy cows for the potential of develping the

disease.

I apologize that I did not take time to see if these are on the net. If

someone wants them, please advise and I can mail you a copy. Mel in SLC