Clues to how prions cross the species barrier
A hybrid prion, created by fusing together prions from two distantly related yeast species, can adopt two distinct shapes and infect both yeast species.
Mar 7, 2001
Yeast cells manufacture a protein called Sup35, which displays prion-like behaviour: it forms aggregates and converts its normal counterpart to the prion version. Previous work by Peter Chien and Jonathan Weissman of the University of California, San Francisco, showed that a species barrier prevents the prion version of Sup35 in one yeast species from converting Sup35 of a different yeast species into the prion version, and vice versa (
In a study published in 8 March
The results suggest that a single protein — in this case Sup35 — can adopt many prion conformations, some of...