And it makes them incredibly hard to fight. We basically have two ways of dealing with them:
• Use vaccination to train the host's immune system deal with it, should it ever encounter the full version.
• Use special drugs to slow down their replication to let the host's immune system deal with the rest.
Prions have no special, prion-only replication strategy we can target, and I'm not sure whether the immune system can be trained to attack only prions and not their regular protein equivalents.
I think you underestimate the immune system. We automatically remoce thousands of misfolded proteins every second in our cells. Its just those few the cellular defence has not yet adapted to too much that we notice. Some kinds of vaccination might work (like expressing part of the misfolded protein to make it an antigen) etc. The reason why we do not have any medication against prions is because they have never been a big thread to us. Pretty much like asteroids, if they fell on us regulary, we would build a planetary defense. But for now, that not up on the agenda
>and I'm not sure whether the immune system can be trained to attack only prions and not their regular protein equivalents.
A prion tends to be vastly different than the original protein. I thought the bigger problem was that prions are the metaphorical tanks of the protein world. Just look at what it takes to denature a prion compared to other proteins.
Of the 6 or 7 criteria biologists usually use to define life, viruses often fall short. E.g. viruses do not have their own metabolism.
Everyone has their own definition though. I remember reading a novel where life was defined simply as heredity, mutation, and adaptation. The second definition makes more sense to me, and implicitly includes viruses.
• Use vaccination to train the host's immune system deal with it, should it ever encounter the full version.
• Use special drugs to slow down their replication to let the host's immune system deal with the rest.
Prions have no special, prion-only replication strategy we can target, and I'm not sure whether the immune system can be trained to attack only prions and not their regular protein equivalents.