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Misfolding of Particular PrP and Susceptibility to Prion Infection

Pathogenesis of prion diseases in animals is associated with the misfolding of the cellular prion protein PrPC to the infectious form, PrPSc. We hypothesized that an animal’s susceptibility to prions is correlated with the propensity of an animal’s PrPC to adopt a β-sheet, PrPSc-like, conformation. We have developed a method which uses circular dichroism (CD) to directly calculate the relative population of PrP molecules that adopt a β-sheet conformation or the ‘β-state’, as a function of denaturant concentration and pH.
We find that the PrP from animals that are more susceptible to prion diseases, like
hamsters and mice, adopt the β-state more readily than the PrP from rabbits. The X-ray
crystal structure of rabbit PrP reveals a helix-capping motif that may lower the propensity to form the β-state. PrP in the β-state contains both monomeric and octameric β-structured species, and possesses cytotoxic properties.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/24589
Date27 July 2010
CreatorsKhan, Muhammad Qasim
ContributorsChakrabartty, Avijit
Source SetsUniversity of Toronto
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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