Spontaneous generation of diverse recombinant prion strains: sulfated glycan cofactors facilitate strain emergence but do not determine specific strain properties.

ABSTRACT: Significant advances over the last two decades in the study of in vitro prion formation and propagation have revealed that distinct cofactors can facilitate or induce spontaneous prion misfolding. This, in turn, has raised important questions about the role of cofactors and their potential significance in vivo in prion diseases. Key questions include whether cofactors are necessary for prion infectivity or whether they might play a crucial role in determining strain features without being essential for infection. Grounded in previous work that showed that polyanions such as RNA or dextran sulfate facilitate spontaneous prion misfolding in vitro, we have addressed whether other chemically similar cofactors could expand the diversity of PrP^Sc conformers and whether these would exh

SUBMITTER: Lorenzo NL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12676776 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature