Acta Neuropatho Commun: Study reveals early accumulation of prion in retina

January 30, 2021 /--- According to a new study of the accumulation of prion proteins in the eye by scientists at the National Institutes of Health, the earliest damage to the eye from the virus occurs in cone cells, especially in fibre hair and ribbon synapses.
virus disease occurs when normal harmless viral protein molecules are abnormal and congregate in clusters and wires in the human body and brain.
understanding how viral diseases develop, especially the access of eye diseases to clinicians, can help scientists determine ways to slow the spread of viral diseases.
findings, published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications, may help shed light on the study of retinal pigmentation, a genetic disorder similar to photorereponsitor degeneration that causes blindness.
(Photo Source, www.pixabay.com) the prion virus can cause slow, degenerative, and often fatal, central nervous systems in humans and other mammals.
mainly affects the brain, but can also affect the eyes and other organs.
in the eye, the main cells of viral infection are light-detecting photoreceptors called cones and rods, both located in the retina.
in their study, scientists from the National Institutes of Health's Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana, used laboratory mice infected with itching, a common prion disease in sheep and goats.
Using a confocus microscope to identify both viral proteins and various retinal proteins, scientists have discovered that the earliest s-viral protein deposits in viral aggregates are located in conical photoreceptors near the cerberial hair, the tyroral structure needed to transport molecules between cell chambers.
their work suggests that by interfering with the transport of fibre, these aggregates may provide an important early mechanism through which viral infections selectively destroy photoreceptors.
later in the study, they observed similar findings in rod cells.
these structural damage and photoreceptor death, viral proteins are also deposited in cone cells and rods adjacent to band synapses.
band synapses are specialized neuron connections found in eye and auditory neural path pathps and their health is critical to the functioning of retinal resococctor cells in the eye and hair cells in the ear.
Next, the researchers hope to study whether similar findings have been made in the retina of patients with other degenerative diseases, characterized by host protein errors such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
source:.com Scientists identify locations of early prion protein deposition in retina Original source: James F. Striebel et al, Prion-induced photoreceptor degeneration begins with withfolded prion protein protein deposit in cones at at two distinct sites: cilia and ribbon synapses, Acta Neuropathicica Communications 2021. DOI: 10.1186/s40478-021-01120-x