The cellular mechanisms by which prions cause neurological dysfunction are poorly understood. To address this issue, we have been using cultured cells to analyze the localization, biosynthesis, and metabolism of PrP molecules carrying mutations associated with familial prion diseases. We report here that mutant PrP molecules are delayed in their maturation to an endoglycosidase H-resistant form after biosynthetic labeling, suggesting that they are impaired in their exit from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). However, we find that proteasome inhibitors have no effect on the maturation or turnover of either mutant or wild-type PrP molecules. Thus, in contrast to recent studies from other laboratories, our work indicates that PrP is not subject to retrotranslocation from the ER into the cytoplasm prior to degradation by the proteasome. We find that in transfected cells, but not in cultured neurons, proteasome inhibitors cause accumulation of an unglycosylated, signal peptide-bearing form of PrP on the cytoplasmic face of the ER membrane. Thus, under conditions of elevated expression, a small fraction of PrP chains is not translocated into the ER lumen during synthesis, and is rapidly degraded in the cytoplasm by the proteasome. Finally, we report a previously unappreciated artifact caused by treatment of cells with proteasome inhibitors: an increase in PrP mRNA level and synthetic rate when the protein is expressed from a vector containing a viral promoter. We suggest that this phenomenon may explain some of the dramatic effects of proteasome inhibitors observed in other studies. Our results clarify the role of the proteasome in the cell biology of PrP, and suggest reasonable hypotheses for the molecular pathology of inherited prion diseases.

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Peritoneal exudate cells, obtained from mice injected with thioglycollate medium and cultured in medium containing L-cell-conditioned medium, will proliferate in an exponential fashion for 18 days with a doubling time of 68 h. After a 2 h pulse of tritiated thymidine, labeled adherent cells increased to a maximum of 22-34% during the 1st and 2nd wk of culture. Increasing the cell concentration from 2 times 10-3 to 2 times 10-5 cells/culture reduced exponential growth to 10 days and the doubling time was increased to 81.6 h. Under these culture conditions, peritoneal exudate cells were shown to form colonies on the surface of culture dishes when plated at low density. The cells within the colony were shown to be macrophages using yeast and antibody-coated sheep erythrocytes as a test for phagocytic function. The plating efficiolonies arose from a single precursor cell. The adherent cell population contains the colony-forming precursors. These precursors can be stimulated to form colonies for at least 2 wk by the addition of conditioned medium to cultures at various times after plating. While very few colony-forming cells could be demonstrated in the unstimulated peritoneal lavage, their numbers begin to increase in the exudate 4 h after injection of thioglycollate medium and reach a maximum by day 3 and then decrease. Isolated colonies may be useful in studying the function of macrophages.

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