The N-terminal cleavage of cellular prion protein in the human brain

Human brain cellular prion protein (PrPc) is cleaved within its highly conserved domain at amino acid 110/111 down arrow 112. This cleavage generates a highly stable C-terminal fragment (C1). We examined the relative abundance of holo- and truncated PrPc in human cerebral cortex and we found important inter-individual variations in the proportion of Cl. Neither age nor postmortem interval explain the large variability observed in C1 amount. Interestingly, our results show that high levels of C1 are associated with the presence of the active ADAM10 suggesting this zinc metalloprotease as a candidate for the cleavage of PrPc in the human brain. (c) 2005 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.