西奥多(“泰德”)奥托·迪纳(*1921年2月28日在苏黎世,瑞士;2023年3月28日,贝尔茨维尔,MD,美国)在植物病毒学实验室工作时率先开展了类病毒研究,农业研究服务,美国农业部,在贝尔茨维尔。他创造了类病毒这个名字,并定义了类病毒的重要特征,例如没有蛋白质编码能力的裸露单链RNA的感染性。在1970年代和1980年代的科学会议上,类病毒经常在会议上与其他“亚病毒病原体”一起讨论。这个术语包括现在所谓的卫星RNA和病毒。卫星RNA依赖于辅助病毒,具有线性或,在类病毒的情况下,环状RNA基因组。朊病毒,蛋白质感染性颗粒,是瘙痒病的代理人,库鲁和其他一些疾病。许多卫星RNA,像类病毒,是非编码的,并通过热力学或动力学控制的折叠发挥其功能,虽然朊病毒是唯一的宿主编码的蛋白质,通过错误折叠导致疾病,它们的构象聚集和传播为感染性朊病毒亚型。在这个纪念碑里,我们将回顾TedDiener在亚病毒病原体上的工作。
Theodor (\"Ted\") Otto Diener (* 28 February 1921 in Zürich, Switzerland; † 28 March 2023 in Beltsville, MD, USA) pioneered research on viroids while working at the Plant Virology Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, in Beltsville. He coined the name viroid and defined viroids\' important features like the infectivity of naked single-stranded RNA without protein-coding capacity. During scientific meetings in the 1970s and 1980s, viroids were often discussed at conferences together with other \"subviral pathogens\". This term includes what are now called satellite RNAs and prions. Satellite RNAs depend on a helper virus and have linear or, in the case of virusoids, circular RNA genomes. Prions, proteinaceous infectious particles, are the agents of scrapie, kuru and some other diseases. Many satellite RNAs, like viroids, are non-coding and exert their function by thermodynamically or kinetically controlled folding, while prions are solely host-encoded proteins that cause disease by misfolding, aggregation and transmission of their conformations into infectious prion isoforms. In this memorial, we will recall the work of Ted Diener on subviral pathogens.