Prions prevent neuronal cell-line death

Canine MDCK cell lines are refractory to infection with human and mouse prions

“…3T3-NIH cells. In addition we used cell lysates from murine hippocampal cell lines derived from Prnp +/+ , designated HW, or from Prnp -/-mice, called HpL [19], for positive and negative controls respectively. We found that in all three MDCK cell lysates, PrP C was detectable, but in levels significantly lower than that of HW or 3T3-NIH cells ( Figure 1A).…”

Trafficking of PrPcto mitochondrial raft-like microdomains during cell apoptosis

“…The neuroprotective functions of PrP C have been attributed to its BCL-2-like properties. 36 PrP C protects against cell death by preventing the conformational change of BAX that occurs during BAX activation. 37 A direct interaction of PrP C with BAX is, however, not…”

Bovine prion protein as a modulator of protein kinase CK2

“…This might provide an intriguing connection with the suggested involvement of PrP in anti-apoptotic pathways [26]. Indeed, when β subunits of CK2 display their stimulatory capacity towards the synthetic R $ A # DSD & peptide, up-regulation by bPrP is hardly detectable ( Figure 3C).…”

“…However, the precise understanding of the conversion mechanism, its prerequisites and immediate consequences are hampered because the physiological role of PrP c is still poorly defined. Nevertheless, a few functions have been proposed : for example, an involvement in anti-apoptotic pathways [26] or in the cellular resistance to oxidative stress exploited by the combined superoxide dismutase activity and copperbinding capacity of PrP c [27,28]. Our results disclose another possible function of PrP, by showing that bPrP interacts with and up-regulates one of the most pleiotropic protein kinases, CK2, known to impinge on many proteins implicated in a variety of cell functions, in particular in signal transduction and gene expression pathways [1,8,29].…”