Autophagy pathways in the treatment of prion diseases.

ABSTRACT

Prions use cellular machineries for autocatalytic propagation by conformational conversion of the cellular prion protein into the pathological isoform PrPSc. Autophagy is a basic cellular degradation and recycling machinery that delivers cargo to lysosomes. Increase of autophagic flux in cells results in enhanced delivery of PrPSc in late endosomes to lysosomal degradation, providing a therapeutic target for prion diseases. Application of chemical enhancers of autophagy to cell or mouse models of prion infection provided a solid experimental proof-of-concept for this anti-prion strategy. In addition, increasing autophagy also reduces exosomal release of prions and transfer of prion infectivity between cells. Taken together, pharmacological induction of autophagy is a promising target for containing prion diseases, and ideal candidate for future combination therapies.