Analysis of Conformational Stability of Abnormal Prion Protein Aggregates across the Spectrum of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Prions

The wide phenotypic variability of prion diseases is thought to depend on the interaction of a host genotype with prion strains that have self-perpetuating biological properties enciphered in distinct conformations of the misfolded prion protein PrPSc. This concept is largely based on indirect approaches studying the effect of proteases or denaturing agents on the physicochemical properties of PrPSc aggregates. Furthermore, most data come from studies on rodent-adapted prion strains, making current understanding of the molecular basis of strains and phenotypic variability in naturally occurring diseases, especially in humans, more limited. To fill this gap, we studied the effects of guanidine hydrochloride (GdnHCl) and heating on PrPSc aggregates extracted from 60 sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and 6 variant CJD brains. While denaturation curves obtained after exposure of PrPSc to increasing GdnHCl concentrations showed similar profiles among the 7 CJD types analyzed, PrPSc exposure to increasing temperature revealed significantly different and type-specific responses. In particular, MM1 and VV2, the most prevalent and fast-replicating CJD types, showed stable and highly resistant PrPSc aggregates, whereas VV1, a rare and slowly propagating type, revealed unstable aggregates that easily dissolved at low temperature. Taken together, our results indicate that the molecular interactions mediating the aggregation state of PrPSc, possibly enciphering strain diversity, are differently targeted by GdnHCl, temperature, and proteases. Furthermore, the detected positive correlation between the thermostability of PrPSc aggregates and disease transmission efficiency makes inconsistent the proposed hypothesis that a decrease in conformational stability of prions results in an increase in their replication efficiency.