Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
Volume 22, Issue 21, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijms222111310
Keywords
prion protein; BSE; infectivity; PrPBSE; cattle; peripheral and central nervous system; protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA)
Funding
- WALA Heilmittel GmbH
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study found that after oral exposure of 4 to 6 weeks old calves to high doses of BSE, PrPBSE and BSE infectivity were present in peripheral nervous tissues, indicating an early onset of centripetal prion spread in this age group.
After oral exposure of cattle with classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (C-BSE), the infectious agent ascends from the gut to the central nervous system (CNS) primarily via the autonomic nervous system. However, the timeline of this progression has thus far remained widely undetermined. Previous studies were focused on later time points after oral exposure of animals that were already 4 to 6 months old when challenged. In contrast, in this present study, we have orally inoculated 4 to 6 weeks old unweaned calves with high doses of BSE to identify any possible BSE infectivity and/or PrPBSE in peripheral nervous tissues during the first eight months post-inoculation (mpi). For the detection of BSE infectivity, we used a bovine PrP transgenic mouse bioassay, while PrPBSE depositions were analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and by protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA). We were able to show that as early as 8 mpi the thoracic spinal cord as well as the parasympathetic nodal ganglion of these animals contained PrPBSE and BSE infectivity. This shows that the centripetal prion spread starts early after challenge at least in this age group, which represents an essential piece of information for the risk assessments for food, feed, and pharmaceutical products produced from young calves.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available