Recent Advances and New Challenges for Immunological Prion Disorders

Call for Papers

Prion diseases are a large group of neurodegenerative diseases affecting both animals and humans. After a very long time of incubation, these prion diseases show an invariably fatal outcome for the host with no effective treatment yet available. Even though these diseases are rare, they are of great interest: they share common features with other neurodegenerative pathologies such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. They also present a potential epidemic risk by spreading unnoticeably through the population during routine medical interventions and blood transfusion. Infected patients can spread the disease, and early detection of those healthy carriers is still a challenge. Prion diseases are associated with the accumulation mainly in the brain tissue of the prion protein that is an abnormal protease-resistant isoform of a host-encoded glycoprotein (PrPSc). Histological sections show spongiform alteration in the grey matter of the central nervous system and deposits of amyloid-like material that show positivity for the antibody directed against the prion protein.

The route of the prion from periphery to central nervous system goes through lymphoid organs which have been reported to be the first sites of replication. From lymphoid organs, spreading are hematogenic and neurogenic through autosomal nervous system.

We invite authors to submit original research as well as review articles that highlight the importance to continue studying prion diseases even the Mad Cow epidemic seems to be an old story in order to improve understanding of the biology and the pathogenesis of these diseases making early immunological detection easier. We are particularly interested in articles that discuss detection by immunological techniques, potential treatments, and relationships with other neurodegenerative diseases. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Recent development in the knowledge of prion protein structural biology
• Prions and prion-like diseases
• Aging and proteinopathies
• Advances in the understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of human prion disease in vitro generation of prions and new animal models
• Description of the routes of neuro- and lymphoinvasion
• Evaluation of risk of transmission by transfusion and medical procedures (iatrogenic transmission)
• Blood detection of the altered proteins
• Latest technologies for immunodetection of prion or prion-like proteins
• Potential therapeutic approaches

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal’s Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cdi/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/author/submit/journals/cdi/ipd/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Pascale Quatresooz, Department of Human Histology, University of Liège, 4000 Liege, Belgium

Guest Editors

• Armand Perret-Liaudet, Service de Neurobiologie, Groupement Hospitalier Est du CHU, 56 Boulevard Pinel, 69677 Bron Cedex, France
• Ernst Heinen, Department of Human Histology, University of Liège, 4000 Liege, Belgium
• Benaissa El Moualij, Department of Human Histology-CRPP, University of Liège, 4000 Liege, Belgium