PRNP and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, including variant-Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans and bovine spongiform encephalopathies in cattle, are fatal neurodegenerative disorders characterized by protein misfolding of the host cellular prion protein (PrPC) to the infectious scrapie form (PrPSc).