1. A normal gene produces a normal protein, then something goes wrong and the body starts turning out prions. 2. This startling discovery has supported the idea that cancer develops when a cell contains too much of a perfectly normal cellular protein. 3. A normal gene makes a normal protein and a diseased gene presumably makes an abnormal protein. 4. First they tagged the normal protein with a radioactive label. 5. Following the same replication pattern as if it were a normal protein, the prion then goes on to replicate more prions. 6. For unknown reasons, a normal protein called a prion twists into an abnormal shape, usually in the brain. 7. He theorized that they were identical to normal proteins produced by a gene that is found in every cell of the body. 8. In the process, say biochemist Byron Caughey of NIAID and his colleagues, the prions recruit the normal protein to their cause. 9. Most mutations in the APC gene change the DNA programming to produce a much shorter than normal protein, which cannot perform its usual growth-control function. |