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What is Mad cow disease is due to? and explain in detail?
Ans. (a) Protein MisfoldingRef: Harrison 19th ed. / 444e-9* When a prion enters a healthy organism, it induces existing, properly folded proteins to convert into the misfolded prion form. In this way, the prion acts as a template to guide the misfolding of more proteins into prion form.* All known mammalian prion diseases are caused by the prion protein, PrP. The endogenous, properly folded form is denoted PrPc (for Common or Cellular), whereas the disease-linked, misfolded form is denoted as PrPSc (for Scrapie, after one of the diseases first linked to prions and neurodegeneration.)* The precise structure of the prion is not known, though they can be formed by combining PrPc, polyadenylic acid, and lipids in a Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA) reaction