Kent Fungal Group, School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NJ, UK.
Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2010 Dec;11(12):823-33. doi: 10.1038/nrm3007. Epub 2010 Nov 17.
Prions are unusual proteinaceous infectious agents that are typically associated with a class of fatal degenerative diseases of the mammalian brain. However, the discovery of fungal prions, which are not associated with disease, suggests that we must now consider the effect of these factors on basic cellular physiology in a different light. Fungal prions are epigenetic determinants that can alter a range of cellular processes, including metabolism and gene expression pathways, and these changes can lead to a range of prion-associated phenotypes. The mechanistic similarities between prion propagation in mammals and fungi suggest that prions are not a biological anomaly but instead could be a newly appreciated and perhaps ubiquitous regulatory mechanism.
朊病毒是一种不寻常的蛋白质传染性病原体，通常与哺乳动物大脑的一类致命退行性疾病有关。然而，真菌朊病毒的发现表明，我们现在必须从不同的角度来考虑这些因素对基本细胞生理学的影响。真菌朊病毒是表观遗传决定因素，可以改变多种细胞过程，包括代谢和基因表达途径，这些变化可以导致一系列与朊病毒相关的表型。朊病毒在哺乳动物和真菌中的传播机制相似，这表明朊病毒不是一种生物学异常，而是一种新的、也许是普遍存在的调节机制。
