A partícula das «vacas loucas»

«A prion short for proteinaceous infectious particle (-on by analogy to virion) is an infectious agent which according to the "protein only" hypothesis is composed only of protein.^[2] Prions cause a number of diseases in a variety of mammals, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE aka "mad cow disease") in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. All known prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue, and all are currently untreatable and fatal.^[3] In general usage, prion can refer to both the theoretical unit of infection or the specific protein (e.g. PrP) that is thought to be the infective agent, whether or not it is in an infective state». Disponível em: www.worldofmolecules.com/disease/prion.htm