Protein misfolding and aggregation into fibrillar deposits is a common feature of a large group of degenerative diseases affecting the central nervous system or peripheral organs, termed protein ...misfolding disorders (PMDs). Despite their established toxic nature, clinical trials aiming to reduce misfolded aggregates have been unsuccessful in treating or curing PMDs. An interesting possibility for disease intervention is the regular intake of natural food or herbal extracts, which contain active molecules that inhibit aggregation or induce the disassembly of misfolded aggregates. Among natural compounds, phenolic molecules are of particular interest, since most have dual activity as amyloid aggregation inhibitors and antioxidants. In this article, we review many phenolic natural compounds which have been reported in diverse model systems to have the potential to delay or prevent the development of various PMDs, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, prion diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, systemic amyloidosis, and type 2 diabetes. The lower toxicity of natural compounds compared to synthetic chemical molecules suggest that they could serve as a good starting point to discover protein misfolding inhibitors that might be useful for the treatment of various incurable diseases.
The stress of prion disease Mays, Charles E; Soto, Claudio
Brain research,
10/2016, Letnik:
1648, Številka:
Pt B
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders that include scrapie of sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy of cattle, chronic wasting disease of cervids, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob ...disease (CJD) of humans. The etiology for prion diseases can be infectious, sporadic, or hereditary. However, the common denominator for all types is the formation of a transmissible agent composed of a β-sheet-rich, misfolded version of the host-encoded prion protein (PrPC ), known as PrPSc . PrPSc self-replicates through a template-assisted process that converts the α-helical conformation of PrPC into the disease-associated isoform. In parallel with PrPSc accumulation, spongiform change is pathologically observed in the central nervous system, where “holes” appear because of massive neuronal death. Here, we review the cellular pathways triggered in response to PrPSc formation and accumulation. Available data suggest that neuronal dysfunction and death may be caused by what originates as a cellular pro-survival response to chronic PrPSc accumulation. We also discuss what is known about the complex cross-talk between the endoplasmic reticulum stress components and the quality control pathways. Better knowledge about these processes may lead to innovative therapeutic strategies based on manipulating the stress response and its consequences for neurodegeneration.
Prion diseases are a group of incurable neurodegenerative disorders that affect humans and animals via infection with proteinaceous particles called prions. Prions are composed of PrPSc, a misfolded ...version of the cellular prion protein (PrPC). During disease progression, PrPSc replicates by interacting with PrPC and inducing its conversion to PrPSc. As PrPSc accumulates, cellular stress mechanisms are activated to maintain cellular proteostasis, including increased protein chaperone levels. However, the exact roles of several of these chaperones remain unclear. Here, using various methodologies to monitor prion replication (i.e. protein misfolding cyclic amplification and cellular and animal infectivity bioassays), we studied the potential role of the molecular chaperone heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) in prion replication in vitro and in vivo. Our results indicated that pharmacological induction of the heat shock response in cells chronically infected with prions significantly decreased PrPSc accumulation. We also found that HSP70 alters prion replication in vitro. More importantly, prion infection of mice lacking the genes encoding stress-induced HSP70 exhibited accelerated prion disease progression compared with WT mice. In parallel with HSP70 being known to respond to endogenous and exogenous stressors such as heat, infection, toxicants, and ischemia, our results indicate that HSP70 may also play an important role in suppressing or delaying prion disease progression, opening opportunities for therapeutic intervention.
Many questions surround the underlying mechanism for the differential metabolic processing observed for the prion protein (PrP) in healthy and prion-infected mammals. Foremost, the physiological ...α-cleavage of PrP interrupts a region critical for both toxicity and conversion of cellular PrP (PrP
) into its misfolded pathogenic isoform (PrP
) by generating a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored C1 fragment. During prion diseases, alternative β-cleavage of PrP becomes prominent, producing a GPI-anchored C2 fragment with this particular region intact. It remains unexplored whether physical up-regulation of α-cleavage can inhibit disease progression. Furthermore, several pieces of evidence indicate that a disintegrin and metalloproteinase (ADAM) 10 and ADAM17 play a much smaller role in the α-cleavage of PrP
than originally believed, thus presenting the need to identify the primary protease(s) responsible. For this purpose, we characterized the ability of plasmin to perform PrP α-cleavage. Then, we conducted functional assays using protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) and prion-infected cell lines to clarify the role of plasmin-mediated α-cleavage during prion propagation. Here, we demonstrated an inhibitory role of plasmin for PrP
formation through PrP α-cleavage that increased C1 fragments resulting in reduced prion conversion compared with non-treated PMCA and cell cultures. The reduction of prion infectious titer in the bioassay of plasmin-treated PMCA material also supported the inhibitory role of plasmin on PrP
replication. Our results suggest that plasmin-mediated endoproteolytic cleavage of PrP may be an important event to prevent prion propagation.
In lethal prion neurodegenerative diseases, misfolded prion proteins (PrP(Sc)) replicate by redirecting the folding of the cellular prion glycoprotein (PrP(C)). Infections of different durations can ...have a subclinical phase with constant levels of infectious particles, but the mechanisms underlying this plateau and a subsequent exit to overt clinical disease are unknown. Using tandem biophysical techniques, we show that attenuated accumulation of infectious particles in presymptomatic disease is preceded by a progressive fall in PrP(C) level, which constricts replication rate and thereby causes the plateau effect. Furthermore, disease symptoms occurred at the threshold associated with increasing levels of small, relatively less protease-resistant oligomeric prion particles (oPrP(Sc)). Although a hypothetical lethal isoform of PrP cannot be excluded, our data argue that diminishing residual PrP(C) levels and continuously increasing levels of oPrP(Sc) are crucial determinants in the transition from presymptomatic to symptomatic prion disease.
Prions are infectious agents that cause lethal brain diseases; they arise from misfolding of a cell surface protein, PrP(C) to a form called PrP(Sc). Prion infections can have long latencies even though there is no protective immune response. Accumulation of infectious prion particles has been suggested to always reach the same plateau in the brain during latent periods, with clinical disease only occurring when hypothetical toxic forms (called PrP(L) or TPrP) begin to accumulate. We show here that infectivity plateaus arise because PrP(C) precursor levels become downregulated and that the duration of latent periods can be accounted for by the level of residual PrP(C), which transduces a toxic effect, along with the amount of oligomeric forms of PrP(Sc).
Advances in biotechnology have led to the development of a number of biological therapies for the treatment of diverse human diseases. Since these products may contain or are made using human or ...animal (e.g. cattle) derived materials, it is crucial to test their safety by ensuring the absence of infectious agents; specifically prions, which are highly resilient to elimination and produce fatal diseases in humans. Many cases of iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have been caused by the use of biological materials (e.g. human growth hormone) contaminated with prions. For this reason, it is important to screen cells and biological materials for the presence of prions. Here we show the utility of the Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA) technology as a screening tool for the presence of human (vCJD) and bovine (BSE) prions in a human cell therapy product candidate. First, we demonstrated the sensitivity of PMCA to detect a single cell infected with prions. For these experiments, we used RKM7 cells chronically infected with murine RML prions. Serial dilutions of an infected cell culture showed that PMCA enabled prion amplification from a sample comprised of only one cell. Next, we determined that PMCA performance was robust and uncompromised by the spiking of large quantities of uninfected cells into the reaction. Finally, to demonstrate the practical application of this technology, we analyzed a human cell line being developed for therapeutic use and found it to be PMCA-negative for vCJD and BSE prions. Our findings demonstrate that the PMCA technology has unparalleled sensitivity and specificity for the detection of prions, making it an ideal quality control procedure in the production of biological therapeutics.
To clarify the role of plasminogen as a cofactor for prion propagation, we conducted functional assays using a cell-free prion protein (PrP) conversion assay termed protein misfolding cyclic ...amplification (PMCA) and prion-infected cell lines. Here, we report that plasminogen stimulates propagation of the protease-resistant scrapie PrP (PrPSc). Compared to control PMCA conducted without plasminogen, addition of plasminogen in PMCA using wild-type brain material significantly increased PrP conversion, with an EC₅₀ = ~56 nM. PrP conversion in PMCA was substantially less efficient with plasminogen-deficient brain material than with wild-type material. The activity stimulating PrP conversion was specific for plasminogen and conserved in its kringle domains. Such activity was abrogated by modification of plasminogen structure and interference of PrP-plasminogen interaction. Kinetic analysis of PrPSc generation demonstrated that the presence of plasminogen in PMCA enhanced the PrPSc production rate to ~0.97 U/μl/h and reduced turnover time to ~1 h compared to those (~0.4 U/μl/h and ~2.5 h) obtained without supplementation. Furthermore, as observed in PMCA, plasminogen and kringles promoted PrPSc propagation in ScN2a and Elk 21⁺ cells. Our results demonstrate that plasminogen functions in stimulating conversion processes and represents the first cellular protein cofactor that enhances the hypothetical mechanism of prion propagation.--Mays, C. E., Ryou, C. Plasminogen stimulates propagation of protease-resistant prion protein in vitro.
To explore pathogenesis in a young Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker Disease (GSS) patient, the corresponding mutation, an eight-residue duplication in the hydrophobic region (HR), was inserted into the ...wild type mouse PrP gene. Transgenic (Tg) mouse lines expressing this mutation (Tg.HRdup) developed spontaneous neurologic syndromes and brain extracts hastened disease in low-expressor Tg.HRdup mice, suggesting de novo formation of prions. While Tg.HRdup mice exhibited spongiform change, PrP aggregates and the anticipated GSS hallmark of a proteinase K (PK)-resistant 8 kDa fragment deriving from the center of PrP, the LGGLGGYV insertion also imparted alterations in PrP's unstructured N-terminus, resulting in a 16 kDa species following thermolysin exposure. This species comprises a plausible precursor to the 8 kDa PK-resistant fragment and its detection in adolescent Tg.HRdup mice suggests that an early start to accumulation could account for early disease of the index case. A 16 kDa thermolysin-resistant signature was also found in GSS patients with P102L, A117V, H187R and F198S alleles and has coordinates similar to GSS stop codon mutations. Our data suggest a novel shared pathway of GSS pathogenesis that is fundamentally distinct from that producing structural alterations in the C-terminus of PrP, as observed in other prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and scrapie.
Violence is a major public health problem in the USA. In 2016, more than 1.6 million assault-related injuries were treated in US emergency departments (EDs). Unfortunately, information about the ...magnitude and patterns of violent incidents is often incomplete and underreported to law enforcement (LE). In an effort to identify more complete information on violence for the development of prevention programme, a cross-sectoral Cardiff Violence Prevention Programme (Cardiff Model) partnership was established at a large, urban ED with a level I trauma designation and local metropolitan LE agency in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. The Cardiff Model is a promising violence prevention approach that promotes combining injury data from hospitals and LE. The objective was to describe the Cardiff Model implementation and collaboration between hospital and LE partners.
The Cardiff Model was replicated in the USA. A process evaluation was conducted by reviewing project materials, nurse surveys and interviews and ED-LE records.
Cardiff Model replication centred around four activities: (1) collaboration between the hospital and LE to form a community safety partnership locally called the US Injury Prevention Partnership; (2) building hospital capacity for data collection; (3) data aggregation and analysis and (4) developing and implementing violence prevention interventions based on the data.
The Cardiff Model can be implemented in the USA for sustainable violent injury data surveillance and sharing. Key components include building a strong ED-LE partnership, communicating with each other and hospital staff, engaging in capacity building and sustainability planning.
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