LA Times, Milwaukee Journal: A PNAS study says Mad Cow may be viral, not a prion disease
There have been several, failed efforts by researchers over the years go knock holes in the prion hypothesis for spongiform encephalopathies, including some doubting the very existence of infectious, distorted proteins. Thus, word of another at first elicits a yawn. But this one is worth watching. At least two news accounts describe a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reporting viral particles associated with a Mad Cow disease-like condition in mice. Yale University researchers and others behind it say they haven’t disproven the prion idea. But the work, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s John Fauber two days ago, calls it into question and provides, one researcher says, “a very strong alternative.” The pic, from Yale, shows “viruslike particles” in an infected cell.
The LA Times’s Jia-Rui Chong reports it also, today. The Yale team suspects that the odd proteins called prions are actually the side-effect of a viral infection. The scientist calls that “the simplest, most parsimonious point of view.”
Other researchers are of course skeptical.
Grist for the Mill: Yale U. Press Release;
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