title: Cell-specific susceptibility to prion strains is a property of the intact cell.
abstract: Prions consist of PrP (Sc), a misfolded version of the cellular protein PrP (C). They occur in a variety of strains that share the amino acid sequence of PrP but differ in phenotypic properties, such as cell tropism and pathogenicity; strain-ness is attributed to the conformation of PrP (Sc). To gain insight as to how susceptibility of cells to a given prion strain comes about, we compared amplification of RML prions by PMCA, using cell lysates from related, RML-resistant and RML-susceptible cell lines as substrate. We found that both lysates supported amplification of RML PrP (Sc) equally well, despite a 280-fold difference in the susceptibility of the cells from which they were derived. Thus, susceptibility is an attribute of the intact cell.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectology, Scripps Florida, Jupiter, FL, USA.
authors.forename: Maria E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Herva
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weissman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D051379:Mice; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D018620:PrPSc Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D017096:Prion Diseases / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D017510:Protein Folding
chemical_list: D018620:PrPSc Proteins