Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases are characterized by conversion of the normal
protease-sensitive host
prion protein,
PrP-sen, to an abnormal
protease-resistant form,
PrP-res. In the current study, deletions were introduced into the flexible tail of
PrP-sen (23) to determine if this region was required for formation of
PrP-res in a cell-free assay.
PrP-res formation was significantly reduced by deletion of residues 34-94 relative to full-length hamster PrP. Deletion of another nineteen
amino acids to residue 113 further reduced the amount of
PrP-res formed. Furthermore, the presence of additional
proteinase K cleavage sites indicated that deletion to residue 113 generated a
protease-resistant product with an altered conformation. Conversion of PrP deletion mutants was also affected by post-translational modifications to
PrP-sen. Conversion of unglycosylated
PrP-sen appeared to alter both the amount and the conformation of
protease-resistant
PrP-res produced from N-terminally truncated
PrP-sen. The N-terminal region also affected the ability of hamster PrP to block mouse
PrP-res formation in
scrapie-infected mouse
neuroblastoma cells. Thus, regions within the flexible N-terminal tail of PrP influenced interactions required for both generating and disrupting
PrP-res formation.