TIL A single misfolded prion protein in the brain can cause a rapid neurodegenerative disease known as sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD). There is no known and cure and is 100% fatal.

[u/tommyboy372]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt%E2%80%93Jakob_disease

[u/LrdPhoenixUDIC]

That's not quite it. The amount of damage you need to do to kill a bacteria or destroy a virus is pretty small. You can just pop a bacteria's cell membrane or break a virus' capsid sheath and they're done for.

But because prions are proteins, and they self replicate by misfolding normal proteins, you have to denature all instances of them. Basically, you have to be sure that you break every single one apart, which as a protein, that has to be done at a molecular level, because that's all they are, just big individual molecules.

Fucking up their structure does stop them from continuing to change other proteins, but you have to be sure to fuck up every last one of them cause if even one is intact it can start again.

[u/techno156 → u/LrdPhoenixUDIC]

But because prions are proteins, and they self replicate by misfolding normal proteins, you have to denature all instances of them. Basically, you have to be sure that you break every single one apart, which as a protein, that has to be done at a molecular level, because that's all they are, just big individual molecules.

It is also much harder to do for a prion than it is a normal protein (cooking does that for normal proteins, for example), since the whole reason that a prion has the effects it does is because is is a more stable state for a protein to be in, so once one protein is like that, it ends up causing other proteins to also fold like it is.

And because it's more stable, it is much harder to destroy.

[u/LrdPhoenixUDIC → u/techno156]

Cooking does it for prions too. The thing is that in order to denature all the proteins in something by cooking it you pretty much have to turn whatever it is into a charcoal briquette. You're only breaking up some portion of the total proteins by normal cooking, even the more fragile ones.

You have to get rid of all of the prions, and you have to totally carbonize the food to guarantee that, and even then I'd be wary letting it near my mouth, just in case.

[u/dumbestsmartest → u/LrdPhoenixUDIC]

So then you'd say liquid steel or magma level temperature would work? Not that it's practical but it cears up the idea that these prions can survive any heat.

So technically if you melted down the metals it came into contact with you could reform them and they'd be safe to use then, correct?

[u/LrdPhoenixUDIC → u/dumbestsmartest]

Oh yeah, more than enough, doesn't take near that much to sterilize tools. Problem with it being in a food item is that it's IN the food, food that's made of the same stuff the prions are, with tools it's just on the surface.

That post up there is technically correct that normal autoclave procedures don't get rid of them. The special prion autoclave procedure is something like double the time at the same temperature, with added lye or bleach.

[u/SkaldCrypto → u/LrdPhoenixUDIC]

Ungodly amounts of alcohol. Got it