PRION proteins that play a key role in diseases such as BSE in cattle and vCJD in humans might have a benign alter ego. In their normal form they may help the development of a healthy nervous system.
No one quite knows what function normal prions serve in healthy tissue. Now Andrew Steele at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Jason Emsley at Massachusetts General Hospital have found that prions act as a type of molecular “gas pedal” for the rudimentary stem cells that turn into the different types of neurons in the brain.
Mice genetically engineered to produce…
