Article
Darwinian evolution of prions in cell culture.
Science (New York, N.Y.) - 12 Feb 2010
Li Jiali, Browning Shawn, Mahal Sukhvir P, Oelschlegel Anja M, Weissmann Charles
Abstract excerpt
Prions are infectious proteins consisting mainly of PrP(Sc), a beta sheet-rich conformer of the normal host protein PrP(C), and occur in different strains. Strain identity is thought to be encoded by PrP(Sc) conformation. We found that biologically cloned prion populations gradually became heterogeneous by accumulating "mutants," and selective pressures resulted in the emergence of different mutants as major...
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