Yury O. Chernoff
Georgia Institute of Technology

About this Book

This book covers a topic that has been neglected for years and has returned to the spotlight only recently. Until the genetic role of DNA was firmly established, many researchers suspected that proteins, rather than nucleic acids, could be carriers of heritable information. However, these models were completely forgotten with the triumphal march of the double helix and the development of a central dogma postulating that information flow occurs strictly from DNA, through RNA, to protein, making it seemingly impossible for the proteins to possess a coding potential. Proteins were downgraded to the role of simple perpetuators and executors of DNA orders. Taken together, data included in this book prove beyond a reasonable doubt that proteins and multiprotein complexes are able to control heritable traits, and that, at least in some examples, this control occurs in a template-like fashion, so that new structures strictly reproduce patterns of pre-existing structures that were not specifically coded in DNA. Thus, protein-based inheritance has left the area of speculation and has emerged as a new topic amenable to high-quality experimental analysis.

Table of Contents

1. Yeast Prions: Evolution of the Prion Concept
Reed B. Wickner, Herman K. Edskes, Frank Shewmaker, Toru Nakayashiki, Abbi Engel,
Linsay McCann and Dmitry Kryndushkin

2. The Genetic Control of the Formation and Propagation of the [PSI+] Prion
of Yeast
Mick F. Tuite and Brian S. Cox

3. A Short History of Small s: A Prion of the Fungus Podospora anserina
Sven J. Saupe

4. Prion-Prion Interactions
Irina L. Derkatch and Susan W. Liebman

5. Prion Stability
Brian S. Cox, Lee Byrne and Mick F. Tuite

6. Prion and Nonprion Amyloids: A Comparison Inspired by the Yeast
Sup35 Protein
Vitaly V. Kushnirov, Aleksandra B. Vishnevskaya, Ilya M. Alexandrov
and Michael D. Ter-Avanesyan

7. Chaperone Effects on Prion and Nonprion Aggregates
Eugene G. Rikhvanov, Nina V. Romanova and Yury O. Chernoff

8. Biological Roles of Prion Domains
Sergey G. Inge-Vechtomov, Galina A. Zhouravleva and Yury O. Chernoff

9. Preformed Cell Structure and Cell Heredity
Janine Beisson

10. Centriole Inheritance
Patricia G. Wilson