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Prions are proteins that are infectious. Prions can fold in many ways, leading to transmission
to other prions, and causing virus-like diseases. Prions are acellular and are characterized by
loss of motor control, dementia, paralysis, wasting, and eventually death. They are believed
to be the cause of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) such as mad cow
disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), which is scrapie in sheep. In humans,
prions cause Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker
syndrome, Kuru. This disease is seen in New Guinea. It's caused by eating human brain
tissue contaminated with infectious prions. To prevent getting kuru, avoid cannibalism.
Some people can prevent getting kuru because they have immunity to it, due to a genetic
variant of prion protein G127V. Kuru is a prion disease suffered by the Fore due to
consuming humans through cannibalism specifically by consuming the brains/nervous
system of the dead. Symptoms include insomnia, lack of coordination/balance, eventually
death. Scrapie is a communicable spongiform encephalopathy of the central nervous system
of sheep and goats caused by a prion and characterized by a very long incubation period followed by pruritus, abnormalities of gait, and
invariably death; it resembles Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and kuru in humans. When cows were fed infected tissue from sheep, they developed
Mad Cow Disease.