Most often associated with mad cow and other infectious diseases, prions have a bright side to them, too. A role for prions as memory-forming helpers is emerging, most recently supported by a study this month (February 11) in PLOS Biology revealing the proteins involved in regulating chain-forming prions in neurons.
The results shed light on a cellular dilemma: How can a neuron form a stable complex in a dynamic environment? It’s known that the fruit fly protein Orb2 can act like a prion in neurons, linking up with other Orb2 proteins to form a stable complex. The long-term memory of the fly is damaged without Orb2’s ability to form a chain.