Prion proteins may store memories Study hints at vital job for two-faced proteins. 30 December 2003
HELEN PEARSON
Mystery proteins called prions, which can flip between two different shapes, might help in laying
down memories, according to US researchers. The finding hints at an entirely new set of roles for
the proteins.
Prions are unusual in the protein world: when they adopt one of their guises, they can reproduce,
converting other identical proteins into copies of themselves. Often such replicating prions are
harmful - they clog up the brains of cattle with mad cow disease and patients with variant Creutzfeldt-
Jakob disease (vCJD).
Now a team led by Eric Kandel at Columbia University in New York has found that a prion-like protein
called CPEB may help nerve cells store memories. A transient electrical signal in the brain might
flip CPEB into its prion form, the researchers suggest, helping to create a permanent memory trace.
The finding raises the prospect that other prion-like proteins could serve all kinds of essential
biological functions. "I think there's tons of them," says team member and prion expert Susan
Lindquist of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Prions that switch genes on and off in one cell, say, could be passed onto another, Lindquist
suggests - a form of inheritance that bypasses DNA. "I think it's an aspect of protein biology that
has probably existed since the beginning of time," she says.
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Posted by Robert Karl Stonjek.