NR ATBN
AU Wills,P.R.
TI Prion diseases and the frame-shifting hypothesis
QU New Zealand Veterinary Journal 1991 Jun; 39(2): 41-5
PT journal article
AB A group of neurological diseases, which includes scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is caused by prion agents which appear to be comprised solely of an abnormal variant of a cellular protein, PrP. Infectious agents which contain no genetic material pose a conundrum for molecular biologists. Theoretical analysis of the gene encoding PrP has suggested a possible mechanism of replication for this proteinaceous infectious agent. The putative mechanism involves frame-shifting during translation of the PrP gene. The normal and abnormal forms of PrP are predicted to have different amino acid sequences.
AD Department of Physics, University of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland 1, New Zealand.
SP englisch
PO Neuseeland