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Science 22 October 1999:
Vol. 286. no. 5440, pp. 660 - 662
DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5440.660
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News Focus

DISEASE RESEARCH:
Prions: A Lone Killer or a Vital Accomplice?

Michael Balter

TÜBINGEN, GERMANY--Britain's bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease," crisis has fueled an explosion of research into variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease--a fatal neurodegenerative disorder linked to eating beef from cattle infected with BSE--and similar fatal brain diseases linked to prions, aberrant forms of a normal cellular protein called PrP. At the largest ever meeting of prion disease researchers here last month, talks revealed important new insights into how prions make their way through the body to the brain and provided strong evidence that immune system cells are conduits for the spread of infection--a disquieting conclusion that may nevertheless hold the key to therapeutic strategies. But there is still no consensus on whether this mysterious disease agent is acting alone.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
A Critical Review of the Nature of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Agent: Protein Theory Versus Virus Theory.
H. Narang (2002)
Experimental Biology and Medicine 227, 4-19
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
A Critical Review of Atypical Cerebellum-Type Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: Its Relationship to ``New Variant'' CJD and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.
H. K. Narang (2001)
Experimental Biology and Medicine 226, 629-639
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Follicular Dendritic Cells and Dissemination of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
L. Manuelidis, I. Zaitsev, P. Koni, Z. Yun Lu, R. A. Flavell, and W. Fritch (2000)
J. Virol. 74, 8614-8622
   Abstract »    Full Text »


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)