Exercise and PrPc

[lansbergen]

Neuroscience Letters 388 (2005) 21–26

Impaired exercise capacity, but unaltered mitochondrial respiration in
skeletal or cardiac muscle of mice lacking cellular prion protein

For this purpose, we submitted Prnp0/0 animals to different protocols of exercise, and compared their performance to that of their respective wild-type controls. Prnp0/0 mice showed an exercise-dependent impairment of locomotor activity

.

Taken together, these results suggest that Prnp0/0 mice presented impaired swimming capacity when compared with wild controls. This effect was dependent on the weight they carried tied to their tail, thus suggesting that the muscular activity of these animals was impaired in a load-dependent manner.

abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16039050

 

[lansbergen]

http://mcb.asm.org/content/early/2010/08/02/MCB.01040-09.full.pdf

Cellular prion protein promotes regeneration of adult muscle tissue

Using morphometric and biochemical parameters, we provide compelling evidence that the absence of PrPC
significantly slows the regeneration process compared to wild-type muscles, by attenuating the stress-activated p38 pathway, and the consequent exit from the cell cycle, of myogenic precursor cells. Demonstrating the specificity of this finding, restoring PrPC expression completely rescues the muscle phenotype evidenced in the absence of PrPC