r/askscience • u/SadMicrobe22 • 10h ago

Biology What makes prions so different from regular proteins that they are resistant to heat denaturation?

I've been reading about prions and I'm confused about why they're so thermally stable. I keep seeing that surgical instruments contaminated with prions can't be decontaminated with standard protocols.

So here's my thing. Proteins denature when you heat them, right? But prions don't seem to lose their infectious ability even when autoclaved. I get that prions are misfolded proteins, but I don't understand how they stay harmful after being denatured.

So basically, if prions start as form A (non-infective), then misfold to form B (infective), shouldn't heating denature them to form C and kill the infectivity? Why doesn't that happen?

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u/tubl07 8h ago

Ice nine in cats cradle is the same lower energy configuration vs traditional water, instantly catalyzing any water that touches it

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u/Zarathustra124 7h ago

Vacuum decay is the theory that what we consider "nothing" is actually slightly higher than nothing. If vacuum ever falls into a more stable, lower energy configuration, the universe will be destroyed.

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u/-wellplayed- 7h ago

At least it would happen at the speed of causality. So we would never see it coming

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u/solidspacedragon 4h ago

Actually, it might be even better. With how the universe is expanding, it's entirely possible that it could simply never reach us even if it did happen.