Prions And Viroids Essay

Looking at Prions and Viroid’s to understand them may be difficult. Because of their simplified structures both prions and viroids are sometimes called subviral particles. It is very simple to get confused between the two at some points. A viroid (an infectious RNA molecule) is like a virus but not quite the same thing. It's smaller than a virus and has no capsid. Prions on the other hand have neither DNA nor RNA to transmit infection. Not enough is known about them, but we do know that a prion is an abnormal or mutated form of a usually harmless protein. They work in two different fields one might say, one mainly on plant life and other on the rest around like animals.

Prions, are proteinaceous, are infectious particles, smaller than viruses,

Fatal neurodegenerative diseases, such as kuru in humans and bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle (commonly known as “mad cow disease”), were shown to be transmitted by prions. This is very interesting because not everyone knows this and believe that everything is just spread through viruses. That is not the case, there are different way that different diseases get spread. The disease commonly known as (“mad cow disease”) is spread by the consumption of meat, nervous tissue, or internal organs between members of the same species. You cannot destroy prions by sterilization or by cooking. Prions are resistant to heat, radiation and chemicals, so they are almost unstoppable. The best way to avoid spreading prions in humans and animals is to prevent brain and spinal cord tissue from getting into the food supply or onto medical

This was done in the year 1971. Viroids are plant pathogens, small, single-stranded, circular RNA particles that are much simpler than a virus. They are known to have the smallest virus genomes capable of causing infections by themselves is around 2 kilobases in size. They do not have a capsid or outer envelope but as with viruses, can reproduce only within a host cell( Diener, T O). Viroids also do not produce any protein what so ever. They produce only a single, specific RNA molecule. Human diseases caused by viroids have yet to be identified to this day but this doesn’t mean it can’t happen. The human pathogen hepatitis D is like viroids but has never been confirmed to be one yet. Viroid-infected plants are responsible for crop failures and the loss of millions of dollars in agricultural revenue