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PRION FITNESS. "The evolution and adaption of human prions is enabled by a dynamic collection of distinct populations of particles, whose evolution is governed by the selection of progressively less stable, faster replicating PrP(Sc) conformers." https://lnkd.in/eE_2Z_t View in LinkedIn

LITMUS TEST. "As Ray noted, in a 1670 letter to the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, he was prompted to investigate on consulting Langham's Garden of Health, where he met with the passage: 'Cast the flowers of chicory among an heap of Ants, and they will soon become as red as blood'. Chicory flowers are known to change colour according to soil pH, and they seemed to have served to the natural philosophers of Ray's era as handy natural litmus paper." https://lnkd.in/eFTfaPq View in LinkedIn

DISTILLATE OF ANT. A number of ancient recipes can be found for distillation of formic acid from ants dating from 1749: "A quantity of these insects collected in May and June was put into a large retort, water being poured upon them, the whole was distiller with a fire slowly increased to boiling..." https://lnkd.in/e3bMYxc View in LinkedIn

TOXICITY of formic acid. The OSHA 8-hour limit for formic acid is 5 parts per million. It is a very toxic chemical, capable of causing shock, severe burns and even human death. Respirators, gloves and protective clothing is required to handle this acid. In carabid beetles, formic acid is stored in the poison glands at an astonishing 80% concentration, or some 160,000 times more than the OSHA limit. https://lnkd.in/eqedn5i View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE for two weekends is about formic acid, made by insects like beetles and ants. Humans can only make this chemical under pressure and heat, and most creatures are very susceptible to its extremely toxic nature. By contrast, insects make it at ambient temperatures and store it in highly concentrated form in their bodies, showering and bathing in this liquid, without adverse effects. View in LinkedIn

EPIGENETIC INHERITANCE. "Prions are...an epigenetic form of inheritance, which means they don't alter any DNA sequence yet still change the organism's traits." https://lnkd.in/eT4cFFg View in LinkedIn

PRION MUTATIONS. "More than 20 amino acid replacements have been observed in inherited prion diseases. Some amino acid polymorphisms in PrP of human, sheep, and mouse appear to influence the onset and phenotype of prion disease." http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/1/111.full View in LinkedIn

SEQUENCE COMPARISONS. "Many residues and regions in the prion protein have been implicated in functioning, pathogenicity, and species barrier. Sequence comparison of mammalian prion proteins may help to evaluate such proposals and gain insight in the molecular evolution of PrP...it is now possible to better reconstruct the molecular evolution of the mammalian prion." https://lnkd.in/eMKg3pR View in LinkedIn

PROTEIN MISFOLDING DISEASES. "The misfolding and aggregation of specific proteins is a common hallmark of many neurodegenerative disorders, including highly prevalent illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, as well as rarer disorders such as Huntington’s and prion diseases. Among these, only prion diseases are ‘infectious’." https://lnkd.in/eZzxrZc View in LinkedIn

"PRION DISEASES are devastating neurological disorders caused by the propagation of particles containing an alternative β−sheet-rich form of the prion protein (PrP). Genes paralogous to PrP, called Doppel and Shadoo, have been identified, that also have neuropathological relevance. PrP is highly conserved across mammals, typically with > 50% sequence identity relative to human." https://lnkd.in/e8tmC2k View in LinkedIn