National Institute of Animal Health (NIAH)

Topics in Animal Health Research 2013

16. Rapid detection of infectivity of bovine spongiform encephalopathy agents

Japanese

The infectivity of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) agents is detectable after 300 or more days with assays involving wild-type mice. To improve the detection process, we examined BSE infectivity in an assay using transgenic mice. Transgenic mice expressing the bovine prion protein were inoculated intraperitoneally with classical (C-type) or atypical L-type BSE agents. Proteinase-resistant PrPSc were detected in the spleens of all transgenic mice at 75 days after inoculation with both types of BSE. Infectivity in PrPSc-positive spleens of the transgenic mice revealed that prions of both C- and L-type BSE replicated. These results suggest that this bioassay using transgenic mice could be useful for the rapid detection of BSE infectivity while discriminating between C- and L-type BSE agents.
(Influenza and Prion Disease Research Center)

References:

Matsuura Y. et al (2013) Open J. Vet. Med. 3(1):79–85

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