Affiliation:
1. *Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106; and
2. Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, The Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India 110016
Abstract
The principal infectious and pathogenic agent in all prion disorders is a β-sheet–rich isoform of the cellular prion protein (PrPC) termed PrP-scrapie (PrPSc). Once initiated, PrPSc is self-replicating and toxic to neuronal cells, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this report, we demonstrate that PrPC binds iron and transforms to a PrPSc-like form (*PrPSc) when human neuroblastoma cells are exposed to an inorganic source of redox iron. The *PrPSc thus generated is itself redox active, and it induces the transformation of additional PrPC, simulating *PrPSc propagation in the absence of brain-derived PrPSc. Moreover, limited depletion of iron from prion disease-affected human and mouse brain homogenates and scrapie-infected mouse neuroblastoma cells results in 4- to 10-fold reduction in proteinase K (PK)-resistant PrPSc, implicating redox iron in the generation, propagation, and stability of PK-resistant PrPSc. Furthermore, we demonstrate increased redox-active ferrous iron levels in prion disease-affected brains, suggesting that accumulation of PrPSc is modulated by the combined effect of imbalance in brain iron homeostasis and the redox-active nature of PrPSc. These data provide information on the mechanism of replication and toxicity by PrPSc, and they evoke predictable and therapeutically amenable ways of modulating PrPSc load.
Publisher
American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)
Subject
Cell Biology,Molecular Biology
Cited by
52 articles.
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