Observational analysis shows infection of human cerebral organoids by prions, indicating traits depend on the prion type rather than the organoid genotype.
Prion diseases, such as sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (sCJD), are neurodegenerative disorders caused by misfolding of the prion protein (PrP). The D178N mutation in the PrP gene causes Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI). Here we show that both sCJD and FFI prions can infect human cerebral organoids with or without the D178N mutation, and that the resulting infection is dictated by the inoculating prion and not the host organoid genotype.
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Groveman et al. (2025) studied this question.
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