BIOL 1090 Lecture Notes - Blood Transfusion, Oxidative Stress, Cell Membrane
18 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Karu or cjd is a disease that causes dementia and death (discovered by eating contaiminated beef or blood transfusion) Prion proteins (prpc) are lipid-anchored proteins found on the plasma membrane. Exam question: what is the role of prions? (4 roles) The role of prions is not fully understoof, but thought to be involed in: Like all proteins, prion function is dependent on the corrent folding of the protein. The normal (healthy) prion protein (prpc) contains a region with an a-helix conformation. It can also exis in an infection form (prpsc) in which this region folds in a b-sheet conformation. The two forms of the protein are encoded by the same gene and have the same mino acid sequence. One is alpha helix (prpc) and one is beta sheet (prpsc abnormal) Misfolding of the protein can be spontaneous (sporadic form of cjd)
