Some Speculations about Prions, Amyloid, and Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

The causes of most degenerative diseases are unknown; however, the causes of three degenerative disorders of the central nervous system have been defined by their transmissibility to animals. These diseases are kuru, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, and the Gerstmann-Straüssler syndrome.^{1 , 2} The slow infectious agents that cause these diseases appear to be different from viruses but similar to the agent that causes scrapie, a neurologic disorder of sheep and goats.^{1 , 3} The term "prion" has been introduced to denote this slow infectious agent, with its unusual properties.³ Studies of the molecular structure of scrapie prions in highly purified preparations indicate that they contain one . . .