Kaushik Bharati, PhD Prions are infectious agents that are very unique compared to all other known infectious agents. This uniqueness stems from the fact that prions do not contain a nucleic acid genome that codes for their progeny. Moreover, the only known component of the prion is a modified protein that is encoded by a cellular gene. The best studied prion is the scrapie prion that causes the disease scrapie in sheep. Infected sheep lose coordination, tend to scrape (hence the name “scrapie”)...
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