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