There are wide variations in the susceptibility of humans, animals, and cultured cell lines to infection by prions. In this issue of The EMBO Journal, Marbiah et al (2014) identified a gene regulatory network that regulates the susceptibility of cultured cells to prion infection. Surprisingly, a number of these genes impact the structure of the extracellular matrix. These results have important implications for understanding mechanisms of prion infection and also suggest new therapeutic targets.