Prion protein is expressed on long-term repopulating hematopoietic stem cells and is important for their self-renewal.

ABSTRACT: Although the wild-type prion protein (PrP) is abundant and widely expressed in various types of tissues and cells, its physiological function(s) remain unknown, and PrP knockout mice do not exhibit overt and undisputed phenotypes. Here we showed that PrP is expressed on the surface of several bone marrow cell populations successively enriched in long-term (LT) hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) using flow cytometry analysis. Affinity purification of the PrP-positive and -negative fractions from these populations, followed by competitive bone marrow reconstitution assays, shows that all LT HSCs express PrP. HSCs from PrP-null bone marrow exhibited impaired self-renewal in serial transplantation of lethally irradiated mouse recipients both in the presence and absence of competitors. When treate

SUBMITTER: Zhang CC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1413720 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature