Path: utzoo!censor!jeff
From: jeff@censor.UUCP (Jeff Hunter)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: viruses, computer & bio
Summary: anybody heard about prions lately?
Message-ID: <857@censor.UUCP>
Date: 2 Aug 89 22:35:22 GMT
References: <20800007@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <1666@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <10325@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: Bell Canada, Business Development, Toronto
Lines: 31

pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier) writes:
> > mckinney@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> (regarding computer viruses and there similarity to biological ones)
> >>* First, a bio-virus is one of the simplest ways that DNA has
> >>  of replicating itself.  That is, if you view organisms as merely
> >>  vehicles which DNA uses to replicate itself, then viruses
> >>  represent the minimal means of doing so.
> 
> The simplest way of replicating (using host proteins) is practiced by
> transposons.  These could be considered molecular parasites.
> My personal favorites of these are the transposable introns; beasts that can
> insert themselves in the DNA but are harmless to the cell since they are
> spliced out of the message.  

	I seem to recall that some *proteins* could replicate. I think
this came up back when Legionaire's disease was the "in" thing. "Kuru"
and "scrapie" and even "altzheimer's" (sp?) were thought to be caused
by these proteins (called prions).

	I'd guess that the prion would have to be coded already in
the victim's DNA, and the prion affects the rate of RNA transcription
of that same DNA. I think there are known feedback loops like this
but I don't know if the above diseases are caused this way.

	So what's the current thinking? Are prions for real?

-- 
	-- my opinions --	jeff@censor.uucp

	Keep track of the current path, and use it naturally. 
		Glenn Reid (Postscript Language Program Design)