Cashman N R
Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University, Que.
CMAJ. 1997 Nov 15;157(10):1381-5.
By biological and medical criteria, prions are infectious agents; however, many of their properties differ profoundly from those of conventional microbes. Prions are "encoded" by alterations in protein conformation rather than in nucleic acid or amino acid sequence. New epidemic prion diseases (bovine spongiform encephalopathy and new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) have recently emerged under the active surveillance of the modern world. The risk of contracting prion disease from blood products or other biologicals is now a focus of worldwide concern. Much has been discovered about prions and prion diseases, but much remains to be done.
按照生物学和医学标准，朊病毒是感染性因子；然而，它们的许多特性与传统微生物的特性有很大不同。朊病毒由蛋白质构象的改变“编码”，而非核酸或氨基酸序列。新型流行朊病毒疾病（牛海绵状脑病和新型变异型克雅氏病）最近在现代世界的积极监测下出现。通过血液制品或其他生物制品感染朊病毒疾病的风险目前是全球关注的焦点。关于朊病毒和朊病毒疾病已经有了很多发现，但仍有许多工作要做。
