Estimated model parameter for different prion strains.

Using Eq. 9 and assuming equal to 3, the breakage rate can be estimated (second column, ) from G. In [14] the authors provide for the RML strain (bold) a lower and an upper bound for (0.98 and 3.4 prion/day) in addition to the best estimate (). The fitting obtained in Figure 2A is used here to infer from . We can fix to the values reported in [14] for different strains and estimate (as the only varying parameter) from Eq. 11. Comparing the values estimated in [14] and our extrapolated values, we see contained differences (see Figure S1). This result shows that is the main parameter explaining strain kinetic variability. A remarkable advantage of this method is that it requires only a single rather simple experimental measurement (i.e. resistance to guanidine denaturation) in order to predict the replication dynamics of a particular strain.