PRNP and prion disease: Moreover, it has been proposed that PrPC might have a significant role in the homeostasis of different metal ions21,22, as the brain distribution of metal ions correlates with the PrPC expression level23. It is still unclear if zinc dyshomeostasis, or metal imbalances in general, are part of the pathology in prion diseases, as appears to be the case in other neurodegenerative protein aggregation diseases such as Alzheimer's 24.