Prions can improve the health of fungal populations
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - 07:01
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org) -- Prions, infectious agents composed of proteins with a specific misfolded and transmissible 3D structure that cuases diseases like BSE, can be present in fungal populations on a large scale, preventing the spread of fungal parasites and keeping the population relatively healthy. This remarkable discovery was published in this week’s edition of the scientific magazine PNAS by scientists from Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR. What makes the findings so extraordinary is that many scientists had previously assumed that prions had only a negative effect on the health of their ‘host’.