this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Seems like a real risk for the introduction of prion diseases.
Hmmmmmmmm I thought prion diseases were (usually) a result of eating brain matter and occasionally the result of eating non brain matter that shared a body with a brain. By this understanding, the risk of prion diseases wouldn't be a factor as only the misfolded proteins of a brain are ones that can be risky.
A prion is just a misfolded protine that has some adverse behavior that your body can't detect (there's a mechanism that if your body identifies a malformed protine, it will terminate the cell making it). Anyway, prions live in this small region in a Venn diagram whereits can't be detected, but can still replicate and cause harm.
We mostly think of prion diseases (like mad cow) affecting the brain, but I dont think prions are isolated to the brain... Prion deseases happen to involve the brain a lot because a misbehaving protine in your brain will have a lot more apparent effects
But you could knock out the prion protein gene in the cell lines you use for meat production. It’s not needed for cell survival as far as I know.
In lab grown meat there is less risk of prions than in natural meat. Prions occur naturally and accumulate in the body, specifically the brain, because we have no way to get rid of them. In lab grown meat, the risk of acquiring prions through the animal’s diet is eliminated and the risk of the animal acquiring prions itself during its lifespan is reduced, assuming the meat is grown over a shorter period of time. This is true regardless of what kind of animal the meat duplicates.