title: Allelic variants of hereditary prions: The bimodularity principle.
abstract: Modern biology requires modern genetic concepts equally valid for all discovered mechanisms of inheritance, either "canonical" (mediated by DNA sequences) or epigenetic. Applying basic genetic terms such as "gene" and "allele" to protein hereditary factors is one of the necessary steps toward these concepts. The basic idea that different variants of the same prion protein can be considered as alleles has been previously proposed by Chernoff and Tuite. In this paper, the notion of prion allele is further developed. We propose the idea that any prion allele is a bimodular hereditary system that depends on a certain DNA sequence (DNA determinant) and a certain epigenetic mark (epigenetic determinant). Alteration of any of these 2 determinants may lead to establishment of a new prion allele. The bimodularity principle is valid not only for hereditary prions; it seems to be universal for any epigenetic hereditary factor.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Genetics & Biotechnology , Saint-Petersburg State University , Saint-Petersburg , Russia.
authors.forename: Oleg N
authors.initials: ON
authors.lastname: Tikhodeyev
authors.affiliation: a Department of Genetics & Biotechnology , Saint-Petersburg State University , Saint-Petersburg , Russia.|b Saint-Petersburg Scientific Center of RAS , Saint-Petersburg , Russia.
authors.forename: Oleg V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Tarasov
authors.affiliation: a Department of Genetics & Biotechnology , Saint-Petersburg State University , Saint-Petersburg , Russia.|c The Laboratory of Amyloid Biology , Saint-Petersburg State University , Saint-Petersburg , Russia.
authors.forename: Stanislav A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Bondarev
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides / Q000737:chemistry; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D020935:MAP Kinase Signaling System; D010766:Phosphorylation; D011328:Prions / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D011487:Protein Conformation
chemical_list: D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides; D011328:Prions; D004247:DNA
keywords: amyloid; conformational template; epigenetic inheritance; prion; prion strain; prion variant; the bimodularity principle