Anonymous at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 06:56:42 UTC No. 16443732

Prions are a good argument for abiogenesis

biolover52 at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 10:22:58 UTC No. 16443897

>>16443698
i just want to clarify a common misconception with prions (and one that i definitely had when i was learning them). the pathogenic prion protein is a misfolded version of the PrP protein. The misfolded prion (known as PrPsc) can only target the normal folded version of the protein (known as PrPc). for example, PrPsc will not be able to target proteins like p53 or PKB. Because the PrPc protein is abundant in the brain, this is the reason why prions result in neurodegeneration, because PrPc gets converted into PrPsc and accumulates into toxic fibrils.

unfortunately, the function of PrPc in neurons is not well characterised :( - a study has been done and mice that had knockout PrPc were able to live healthily, so this protein is suggested to not be critical for suvival.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:05:14 UTC No. 16444137

>>16443732
Explain.

EBOK at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:10:06 UTC No. 16444144

I farted.

I'm here.

What's up?

U KnO wHaTs Up

I think I farted

EBOK at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:11:26 UTC No. 16444146

They will receive 0 support from the treaty, they will each experience 60,000 years of minging shitness like they were acting. Just so you could truly see yourselves and be judged by your actual grade/hardness w/e

EBOK at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:13:00 UTC No. 16444149

-someone else does it cause the king wasn't worthy-

EBOK at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:40:55 UTC No. 16444174

>>16444149
Maybe, again

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:48:45 UTC No. 16444185

>>16443897
What does knockout mean in this context? That the PrPc was removed from the brains of mice in the study? How is that accomplished?

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:13:20 UTC No. 16444220

>>16444185
They turn off the DNA that encodes it in embryos or whatever

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 23:16:08 UTC No. 16444910

>>16444137
They are not alive in any sense of the word, do not use nucleic acids, and yet are self-replicating
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2805067/
If such a thing can exist for proteins, can another molecule exist that exhibits the same properties?

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 23:24:15 UTC No. 16444926

>>16444910
I think there are self-replicating salts.

biolover52 at Wed, 23 Oct 2024 03:57:37 UTC No. 16445268

>>16444910
i believe that prions are "self-replicating" in the same way that a virus is self-replicating. prions and viruses both require host cell machinery in order to replicate - for viruses this is the host ribosome and for prions this is the PrPc protein. prions only exist as long as there are other PrPc proteins it can infect, or until it is degraded. this is unlike human cells for example, which as long as you provide them nutrients and the right conditions, can replicate indefinitely.

there are probably some theoretical proteins you could make that could act in a similar way to prions. you would just need to make a protein that can catalyse folding of another of the same protein into the pathogenic fold.

so like normal_protein_a -> bad_protein_a (through catalysis by bad_protein_a). as mentioned before though, this wont truly be self-replicating because you would need lots of normal_protein_a as a prerequiste.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Oct 2024 04:09:57 UTC No. 16445281

Is it really an obscure protein? That shit is everywhere.

biolover52 at Wed, 23 Oct 2024 04:52:13 UTC No. 16445332

>>16445281
>obscure protein
it is considered obscure because the function of the normal protein is still not well understood