Review
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 3, 874-884 (October 2004) | doi:10.1038/nrd1525
Prion diseases — close to effective therapy?
Neil R. Cashman1 & Byron Caughey2 About the authors
Abstract
The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies could represent a new mode of transmission for infectious diseases — a process more akin to crystallization than to microbial replication. The prion hypothesis proposes that the normal isoform of the prion protein is converted to a disease-specific species by template-directed misfolding. Therapeutic and prophylactic strategies to combat these diseases have emerged from immunological and chemotherapeutic approaches. The lessons learned in treating prion disease will almost certainly have an impact on other diseases that are characterized by the pathological accumulation of misfolded proteins.
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Author affiliations
-
Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Toronto, 6 Queen's Park Crescent West, Toronto, Ontario M553H2, Canada.
Email: neil.cashman@utoronto.ca -
Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institutes of Health, 903 South Fourth Street, Hamilton, Montana 57840, USA.
Email: bcaughey@niaid.nih.gov
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