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Prion diseases are transmissible neurodegenerative disorders of humans and animals for which no effective treatment is available. Conformationally altered, protease-resistant forms of the prion protein (PrP) termed PrP Sc are critical for disease transmissibility and pathogenesis, thus representing a primary target for therapeutic strategies. Based on previous findings that tetracyclines revert abnormal physicochemical properties and abolish neurotoxicity of PrP peptides in vitro, we tested the ability of these compounds to interact with PrP Sc from patients with the new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) and cattle with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The incubation with tetracycline hydrochloride or doxycycline hyclate at concentrations ranging from 10 M to 1 mM resulted in a dose-dependent decrease in protease resistance of PrP Sc . This finding prompted us to investigate whether tetracyclines affect prion infectivity by using an animal model of disease. Syrian hamsters were injected intracerebrally with 263K scrapie-infected brain homogenate that was coincubated with 1 mM tetracycline hydrochloride, 1 mM doxycycline hyclate, or vehicle solution before inoculation. Hamsters injected with tetracycline-treated inoculum showed a significant delay in the onset of clinical signs of disease and prolonged survival time. These effects were paralleled by a delay in the appearance of magnetic-resonance abnormalities in the thalamus, neuropathological changes, and PrP Sc accumulation. When tetracycline was preincubated with highly diluted scrapie-infected inoculum, one third of hamsters did not develop disease. Our data suggest that these well characterized antibiotics reduce prion infectivity through a direct interaction with PrP Sc and are potentially useful for inactivation of BSE-or vCJD-contaminated products and prevention strategies.

Prion diseases are marked by the cerebral accumulation of conformationally modified forms of the cellular prion protein (PrPC), known as PrPres. The region comprising the residues 106-126 of human PrP seems to have a key role in this conformational conversion, because a synthetic peptide homologous with this sequence (PrP106-126) adopts different secondary structures in different environments. To investigate the molecular determinants of the physicochemical characteristics of PrP106-126, we synthesized a series of analogues including PrP106-126 HD, PrP106-126 A and PrP106-126 K, with L-His → D-His, His → Ala and His → Lys substitutions respectively at position 111, PrP106-126 NH2 with amidation of the C-terminus, PrP106-126 V with an Ala → Val substition at position 117, and PrP106-126 VNH2 with an Ala → Val substitution at position 117 and amidation of the C-terminus. The analysis of the secondary structure and aggregation properties of PrP106-126 and its analogues showed the following. (1) His111 is central to the conformational changes of PrP peptides. (2) Amidation of the C-terminal Gly126 yields a predominantly random coil structure, abolishes the molecular polymorphism and decreases the propensity of PrP106-126 to generate amyloid fibrils. (3) PrP106-126 V, carrying an Ala → Val substitution at position 117, does not demonstrate a fibrillogenic ability superior to that of PrP106-126. However, the presence of Val at position 117 increases the aggregation properties of the amidated peptide. (4) Amyloid fibrils are not required for neurotoxicity because the effects of PrP106-126 NH2 on primary neuronal cultures were similar to those of the wild-type sequence. Conversely, astroglial proliferation is related to the presence of amyloid fibrils, suggesting that astrogliosis in prion encephalopathies without amyloid deposits is a mediated effect rather than a direct effect of disease-specific PrP isoforms.

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