Inducing prion protein shedding as a neuroprotective and regenerative approach in pathological conditions of the brain: from theory to facts

In the last decades, the role of the prion protein (PrP) in neurodegenerative diseases has been intensively investigated, initially in prion diseases of humans (e.g., Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) and animals (e.g., scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, or “mad cow disease” in cattle). Templated misfolding of physiological cellular prion protein (PrP(C)) into an aggregation-prone isoform (termed PrP “Scrapie” (PrP(Sc))), self-replication and spreading of the latter inside the brain and to peripheral tissues, and the associated formation of infectious proteopathic seeds (termed “prions”) are among the essential pathogenic mechanisms underlying this group of fatal and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Later, key roles of the correctly folded PrP(C) were identified in more common human brain diseases (such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease) associated with the misfolding and/or accumulation of other proteins (such as amyloid-β, tau or α-synuclein, respectively). PrP(C) has also been linked with neuroprotective and regenerative functions, for instance in hypoxic/ischemic conditions such as stroke. However, despite a mixed “bouquet” of suggested functions, our understanding of pathological and, especially, physiological roles played by PrP(C) in the brain and beyond is certainly incomplete. Interactions with various other proteins at the cell surface or within intracellular compartments may account for the functional diversity linked with PrP(C). Moreover, conserved endogenous proteolytic processing of PrP(C) generates several defined PrP(C) fragments, possibly holding intrinsic functions in physiological and pathological conditions, thus making the “true and complete biology” of this protein more complicated to be elucidated. Here, we focus on one of those released PrP(C) fragments, namely shed PrP (sPrP), generated by a membrane-proximate ADAM10-mediated cleavage event at the cell surface. Similar to other soluble PrP(C) fragments (such as the N1 fragment representing PrP’s released N-terminal tail upon the major α-cleavage event) or experimentally employed recombinant PrP, sPrP is being suggested to act neuroprotective in Alzheimer’s disease and other protein misfolding diseases. Several lines of evidence on extracellular PrP(C) (fragments) suggest that induction of PrP(C) release could be a future therapeutic option in various brain disorders. Our recent identification of a substrate-specific approach to stimulate the shedding by ADAM10, based on ligands binding to cell surface PrP(C), may further set the stage for research into this direction.