A novel and rapid method for obtaining high titre intact prion strains from mammalian brain.

ABSTRACT: Mammalian prions exist as multiple strains which produce characteristic and highly reproducible phenotypes in defined hosts. How this strain diversity is encoded by a protein-only agent remains one of the most interesting and challenging questions in biology with wide relevance to understanding other diseases involving the aggregation or polymerisation of misfolded host proteins. Progress in understanding mammalian prion strains has however been severely limited by the complexity and variability of the methods used for their isolation from infected tissue and no high resolution structures have yet been reported. Using high-throughput cell-based prion bioassay to re-examine prion purification from first principles we now report the isolation of prion strains to exceptional levels of purity

SUBMITTER: Wenborn A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4423448 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature