{"id":19684,"date":"2026-03-12T16:32:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/?p=19684"},"modified":"2026-03-12T16:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:49:08","slug":"new-publication-from-the-harris-lab-triggers-for-prion-toxi-ity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/2026\/03\/12\/new-publication-from-the-harris-lab-triggers-for-prion-toxi-ity\/","title":{"rendered":"New publication from the Harris lab: Triggers for Prion toxicity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans and animals. These diseases are caused by PrP<sup>Sc<\/sup>, a misfolded and infec\u00adtious isoform of the normal cellular prion protein (PrP<sup>C<\/sup>), which propagates by a self-templating mechanism. While considerable progress has been made in understanding prion propagation and infectivity, the early cellu\u00adlar events that initiate prion-induced synaptic loss and neurodegeneration remain poorly defined.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/biochemcellbio\/files\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-4.35.48\u202fPM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/biochemcellbio\/files\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-4.35.48\u202fPM-614x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"533\" height=\"266\" class=\"alignright wp-image-19688\" \/><\/a>A recent publication in <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.ppat.1013911\"><em>PLoS Pathogens<\/em><\/a> from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/profiles\/david-a-harris\/\">Harris lab<\/a>, led by graduate student <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/profiles\/jean-royce-p-gatdula\/\">Jean Gatdula<\/a>, focused on the initial molecular events on the neuronal surface that initiate prion synaptotoxicity. Using a specialized neuronal culture system that allows direct measurements of synaptic integrity, they found that experimental manipulations that blocked formation of pathogenic PrP<sup>Sc<\/sup> on the neuronal surface prevented synaptic damage. Thus, membrane-attached PrP<sup>Sc<\/sup> molecules are directly responsible for triggering a prion synaptotoxic signaling cascade, presumably by interacting with other proteins or lipids on the membrane surface. These results not only illuminate basic pathogenic mechanisms, but they suggest a novel therapeutic approach using PrP molecules that are locked in the PrP<sup>C <\/sup>conformation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans and animals. These diseases are caused by PrPSc, a misfolded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[104,101,4658,100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19684"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19697,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19684\/revisions\/19697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}