Agent Protein and the Great Chain Reaction
Agent Protein arrived on the gruesome scene
Looking around, not a tissue was clean
Destruction and chaos left so much debris
But on the side of a tissue were the letters “PrPsc”
With amino acids, Agent protein had resolve
To stop other proteins from beginning to devolve
He searched the central nervous system inside and out
To find how the altered tissue system came about
He interrogated his old friends, proteins he knew
But they had new personalities, from out of the blue
“They seem so improper,” the Agent thought dearly
Why had his friends begun to act so unclearly?
Agent Protein conducted research from day to night
When one afternoon, a mysterious protein gave him a fright
“I go by Scrapie, if you haven’t heard of me yet.
But I want to give you something that you’ll never forget.”
Agent Protein suspiciously looked at him from all around
And noticed not a nucleic acid was to be found
Slowly as he realized that Scrapie was the crook
It was too late, for it was the Agent’s life that Scrape took.
So there the proteins lie, all misfolded in their state
Where healthy organisms once thrived at an earlier date
All the newly formed prions bonded over this interaction
As infectious agents all part of a great chain reaction
This poem reflects the infectious nature of prions and how they interact with other healthy proteins to transform them into a misfolded state. Although the poem may not truly contain necessarily the most factual information, the characterization present is supposed to articulate some scientific process behind the protein behavior. As we all know by now, prions are infectious proteins that are capable of causing diseases that cause other proteins to an improper state. All prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue in a widespread manner that is quite fatal. Newly formed prions convert more previously unexposed proteins, which produces a greater chain reaction that causes a massive aggregate of the prion form. One of the major characteristics in prion-affected tissue is the spongy-like appearance of holes in the tissue. Thus, in aggregate, the tissue damage and cell death accumulates quickly. Furthermore, we know that the misofolded protein form is denoted PrP^Sc for Scrape, one of the diseases linked to neurodegeneration.
I loved your poem! It was fantastically written and really grasps how a “unknown” disease can be very frightening. It also stayed pretty factual which is difficult to do when writing any science-based poetry.