Credit: K. GOUSSET ET AL.

Nature Cell Biol. doi:10.1038/ncb1841 (2009)

Prions that cause brain disease could spread between cells by hijacking a system cells may be using as a way of communicating, Chiara Zurzolo of the Pasteur Institute in Paris and her colleagues report. This may be how infectious prions infiltrate the central nervous system.

The researchers found that prions labelled with a fluorescent protein shuttled from one nerve cell to another by travelling inside nanotubes that connect these cells.

Treatment with a chemical that prevents nanotube formation halted the transfer of prions. Prions also moved from immune-system cells called dendritic cells to neurons.