Molecular Barriers to Zoonotic Transmission of Prions |
| |
| Authors: | Marcelo A. Barria Aru Balachandran Masanori Morita Tetsuyuki Kitamoto Rona Barron Jean Manson Richard Knight James W. Ironside Mark W. Head |
| |
| Affiliation: | The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (M.A. Barria, R. Knight, J.W. Ironside, M.W Head); ;Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (A. Balachandran); ;Japan Blood Products Organization, Kobe, Japan (M. Morita); ;Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan (T. Kitamoto); ;University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush, Scotland, UK (R. Barron, J. Manson) |
| |
| Abstract: | The risks posed to human health by individual animal prion diseases cannot be determined a priori and are difficult to address empirically. The fundamental event in prion disease pathogenesis is thought to be the seeded conversion of normal prion protein to its pathologic isoform. We used a rapid molecular conversion assay (protein misfolding cyclic amplification) to test whether brain homogenates from specimens of classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), atypical BSE (H-type BSE and L-type BSE), classical scrapie, atypical scrapie, and chronic wasting disease can convert normal human prion protein to the abnormal disease-associated form. None of the tested prion isolates from diseased animals were as efficient as classical BSE in converting human prion protein. However, in the case of chronic wasting disease, there was no absolute barrier to conversion of the human prion protein. |
| |
| Keywords: | prion disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy scrapie CJD BSE chronic wasting disease in vitro assay cell-free system protein misfolding diseases prions zoonoses |
|
|
