An improved method for cell-to-cell transmission of infectious prion

Prion diseases are characterized by the accumulation of a pathological form of prion protein (PrPSc), which behaves as an infectious agent. Here we developed an in vitro co-culture system to analyze the PrPSc transmission from ScN2a cell, which persistently retains PrPSc, to naïve N2a cell. In this cell-to-cell transmission system, PrPSc transmitted to recipient N2a cell was able to be detected within 5–7 days. Further characterization showed that higher cell density greatly facilitated the transmission of PrPSc. This improved in vitro transmission method may become a useful tool for unveiling the molecular mechanism of PrPSc transmission.