Prions are infectious particles responsible for fatal neurodegenerative diseases that affect animals but also humans. Understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms of prion infection is the challenge faced by researchers from the Toulouse National Veterinary School and INRA and their English colleagues.
They’re from take an important step, by discovering that mammalian prions are able to spread in an insect, the vinegar fly (or Drosophila fly). They exposed the fly larvae to different prions that naturally affect sheep and observed that these prions actively replicate in adult flies, causing a neurodegeneration associated with a decrease in locomotor activity of insects.
“This work shows for the first time that the replication of mammalian prions in an invertebrate is possible. Ultimately, this study in the Drosophila fly could make it possible to decipher the mechanisms responsible for neurodegeneration in prion diseases and to test the efficacy of therapeutic compounds for these diseases ” the researchers conclude.
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