Lord Lucasasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are aware of any research aimed at identifying homologues of the "prion" gene and, if so, whether any such homologues have been found.
§ Lord Clinton-DavisResearch has established that the prion gene appears to be a single gene. It is not part of a gene family and there is no homology with other genes within the same species.
There is work on identification of prion protein genes in a variety of species, including hamsters, marsupials, cattle, mice and sheep. More generally, homologues of the prion protein gene have been found in marsupials and birds, although they are very different from humans.
BBSRC are funding research to identify genes which could compensate for prion protein absence of PrP gene, in other words a homologous function but not necessarily a homologous gene.