POEM
For the poem about prions, I wanted to get one very basic message through. This message is that when structures become misshapen, they are less and less likely to work. This is because in anatomy and physiology of all organisms, structure equals function. Each structure has its very specific function that even the smallest of mutations can affect.
When a prion protein (PrP) is folded into alpha-helices, it is able to be digested by proteinase K. However, when the prion protein is misfolded into beta sheets, the new mutated version of the prion (PrPSc) becomes partially resistant to proteinase K. The beta-sheets then cause a chain reaction of misfolded proteins occurring until the structure can no longer function.
SONG
For the song about prions, I wanted the listener to get a sense of the spreading of the beta-sheets once one was already misfolded. Once prions become misfolded into PrPSc, the whole structure begins to become misformed.
In this short musical piece, I wanted to construct something that initially was almost completely patterned with a few blips. This is to represent the way that the proteins need to be folded nearly identically. I added piano layers to show the consistent nature of the proteins being made. However, in a key change, the music trails off from the structure that it was before, the same way that a structure would fold differently. From there, the song changes rapidly as the distorted folding occurs over and over until it eventually completely different from the beginning of the song.
DRAWING
Both these pieces show how after prions have misfolded into their PrPSc form, they cause other ‘normal’ prion proteins to mutate into beta-sheets as well.
In my drawing I decided to do a scientific cartoon. After several weeks of focusing on prions, it has been made quite clear that prions are proteins that can adopt two forms; normal, and misfolded. One single misfolded protein shouldn’t seem like a big deal, however, in the case of prions, the misfolded proteins are able to affect the normal proteins and cause a whole population of normal proteins to become misfolded and out of shape. Because prions have this specific behavior, I made a cartoon about Adam and Eve. In this cartoon, Adam represents a normal prion and Eve represents a misfolded prion. After interacting with Eve, Adam (or in this cartoon, his children), all become “misfolded” until the population is so misformed, it is unable to continue. While this cartoon is good to give a basic understanding of prions, not all of its analogies are consistent. If this were to be purely analogous, Adam himself would have become misfolded.
Because it is not purely analogous, I have also added a picture of a normal prion and a misfolded prion at the bottom.
DANCE
This week a guest speaker came in and spoke to us about muscles and their anatomy and physiology. After this, another guest came in and danced with us, emphasizing on detail of movement. For this week’s assignment, we are to portray prions through movement. While initially I did a dance using my full body, I felt as though I needed to be more detailed to truly grasp the synchronization, so I moved onto using only my upper body. For the music in the background, I chose a Chopin song because of its demented nature. Initially in my ‘dance,’ my hands flowed together and smoothly, unified and consistent, representing the way that an alpha-helix would be properly folded as to have a proper function. As the song progressed, my hands began to lose synchronization and recognizable rhythm, representing an alpha-helix mutating into a beta-sheet. This all together represents how prions start out originally not harmful, however when one becomes misfolded, it can spread and be fatal to an organism.