prion
Valid in Scrabble
- Scrabble points
- 7
- Words With Friends
- 9
- Letters
- 5
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Definition of prion
2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included
noun
-
A self-propagating misfolded conformer of a protein that is responsible for a number of diseases that affect the brain and other neural tissue.
“Prions retain deep mysteries, the foremost of which is what on earth they exist for.”
“Five public research institutions in France have imposed a 3-month moratorium on the study of prions—a class of misfolding, infectious proteins that cause fatal brain diseases—after a retired lab worker who handled prions in the past was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the most common prion disease in humans.”
See all 2 definitions Show less
noun
-
A self-propagating misfolded conformer of a protein that is responsible for a number of diseases that affect the brain and other neural tissue.
“Prions retain deep mysteries, the foremost of which is what on earth they exist for.”
“Five public research institutions in France have imposed a 3-month moratorium on the study of prions—a class of misfolding, infectious proteins that cause fatal brain diseases—after a retired lab worker who handled prions in the past was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the most common prion disease in humans.”
- A petrel of the genera Pachyptila and Halobaena.
Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.
Etymology
From (a reordering of) the initial letters of proteinaceous infectious particle. Coined by American neurologist and biochemist Stanley B. Prusiner in 1982.
Words you can make from prion
25 playable · top: ORPIN (7 pts)
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