How would you best describe a prion?

A prion is best described as an infectious protein. This unconventional agent is primarily composed of misfolded proteins that can induce other normal proteins to adopt the same misfolded structure. This misfolding leads to abnormal aggregates that are associated with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and mad cow disease.

Unlike traditional infectious agents like viruses, which contain nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) and require host cells to replicate, prions lack any nucleic acid component. They do not replicate through conventional methods like cell division or viral reproduction. Moreover, prions are distinct from infectious cells, as they do not comprise complete organisms or cellular structures. Thus, their classification as infectious proteins highlights their unique mechanism of pathogenicity, which involves altering the conformation of normal proteins rather than using genetic material to spread infections.