 | Figure 1
Nature Medicine
9, 1463 - 1464 (2003)
doi:10.1038/nm1203-1463
Prion disease: bridging the spleen-nerve gapNeil A Mabbott
& Moira E Bruce | | | | Figure 1. Proximity breeds infectivity.
The distance between follicular dendritic cells (FDCs) and sympathetic nerves controls the rate of scrapie neuroinvasion from the spleen. After peripheral scrapie inoculation, TSE infection initially targets FDCs before spreading to nearby sympathetic nerves and into the spinal cord and brain. In spleens of wild-type mice, FDCs and sympathetic nerves occupy distinct and separate locations in the white pulp. Prinz et al.1 show that scrapie neuroinvasion is faster from spleens of Blr1-/- mice, in which FDCs are situated much closer to splenic nerves than in wild-type mice.
|
|
|
