Treatment of microglia with Anti-PrP monoclonal antibodies induces neuronal apoptosis in vitro

Previous reports highlighted the neurotoxic effects caused by some motif-specific anti-PrP(C) antibodies in vivo and in vitro. In the current study, we investigated the detailed alterations of the proteome with liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry following direct application of anti-PrP(C) antibodies on mouse neuroblastoma cells (N2a) and mouse primary neuronal (MPN) cells or by cross-linking microglial PrP(C) with anti-PrP(C) antibodies prior to co-culture with the N2a/MPN cells. Here, we identified 4 (3 upregulated and 1 downregulated) and 17 (11 upregulated and 6 downregulated) neuronal apoptosis-related proteins following treatment of the N2a and N11 cell lines respectively when compared with untreated cells. In contrast, we identified 1 (upregulated) and 4 (2 upregulated and 2 downregulated) neuronal apoptosis-related proteins following treatment of MPN cells and N11 when compared with untreated cells. Furthermore, we also identified 3 (2 upregulated and 1 downregulated) and 2 (1 upregulated and 1 downregulated) neuronal apoptosis-related related proteins following treatment of MPN cells and N11 when compared to treatment with an anti-PrP antibody that lacks binding specificity for mouse PrP. The apoptotic effect of the anti-PrP antibodies was confirmed with flow cytometry following labelling of Annexin V-FITC. The toxic effects of the anti-PrP antibodies was more intense when antibody-treated N11 were co-cultured with the N2a and the identified apoptosis proteome was shown to be part of the PrP(C)-interactome. Our observations provide a new insight into the prominent role played by microglia in causing neurotoxic effects following treatment with anti-PrP(C) antibodies and might be relevant to explain the antibody mediated toxicity observed in other related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer.