RT Book, Section A1 Levinson, Warren A1 Chin-Hong, Peter A1 Joyce, Elizabeth A. A1 Nussbaum, Jesse A1 Schwartz, Brian SR Print(0) ID 1190863215 T1 Slow Viruses & Prions T2 Review of Medical Microbiology & Immunology: A Guide to Clinical Infectious Diseases, 17e YR 2022 FD 2022 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781264267088 LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1190863215 RD 2024/03/28 AB “Slow” infectious diseases are caused by a heterogeneous group of agents containing both conventional viruses and unconventional agents that are not viruses (e.g., prions). Prions are protein-containing particles with no detectable nucleic acid that are highly resistant to inactivation by heat, formaldehyde, and ultraviolet light at doses that will inactivate viruses. Note that prions are resistant to the temperatures usually employed in cooking, a fact that may be important in their suspected ability to be transmitted by food (see variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease [vCJD] later). Prions are, however, inactivated by protein- and lipid-disrupting agents such as phenol, ether, NaOH, and hypochlorite (see Chapter 28).