The first detection of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Europe
Reinsdyr.
Foto: Colourbox.
Foto: Colourbox.
The Norwegian Veterinary Institute has diagnosed
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a free-ranging reindeer from the Nordfjella
population in South-Norway. CWD is a lethal disease in cervids. The disease is
well known in North America; however this is the first detection of CWD in
Europe. Also, this is the first detection of natural infection in reindeer
worldwide. This news includes a video with expert interviews.
-The sick female reindeer (Rangifer tarandus
tarandus) was detected in the middle of March 2016 in connection with
capture for GPS-collaring using helicopter performed by the Norwegian Institute
for Nature Research (NINA. It died and the carcass was submitted to the
Norwegian Veterinary Institute in Oslo for necropsy and laboratory examinations.
It was an adult animal, says wildlife pathologist Turid Vikøren at Norwegian
Veterinary Institute, who performed the necropsy.
The body condition of the reindeer was below medium, but it had still some adipose tissue left. In cervids older than 18 months, we routinely collect sample of the brain for CWD examination as part of the national surveillance program for CWD, and that was also done in this reindeer, Vikøren continues.
The head of the Norwegian Reference Laboratory for animal prion diseases at Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Sylvie Benestad, states that the brain sample from the reindeer was positive for the detection of prions both by the first routine test (ELISA-test) and in two supplementary tests (Western Blotting, Immunohistochemistry).
SEE VIDEO ;
https://dreambroker.com/channel/8scfyvow/iframe/lyhz7ayc
The disease
Chronic Wasting Disease is a contagious neurological disease that attacks the brain of cervids. CWD belongs to a group of diseases known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), in which the infectious agents are known to be the prion protein, a normal protein that misfolds and destroys the brain. The development of the disease is slow and affected cervids show loss of body condition and altered behaviour. Death is inevitable once clinical disease occurs.
CWD is an endemic disease in North America, in which natural infections occurs in mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), white-tailed deer (O. virginianus), elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) og moose (Alces alces shirasi).The reindeer from Norway represents the first detection of CWD in Europe. Also, this is the first detection of a natural infection in reindeer worldwide.
The Norwegian Veterinary Institute will take the
initiative to follow-up surveys of this disease in the Norwegian wild reindeer
populations.
Contacts....
Turid Vikøren (Wildlife Health) turid.vikoren@vetinst.no
Kjell Handeland (Wildlife Health) kjell.handeland@vetinst.no
Sylvie Benestad (Prions Diseases) sylvie.benestad@vetinst.no
Jorun Jarp, Head of Dep. of Health Surveillance jorun.jarp@vetinst.no Mobile: 90056216.
Asle Haukaas, Communication Director asle.haukaas@vetinst.no Mobile: 92080877.
http://www.vetinst.no/eng/Highlights/The-first-detection-of-Chronic-Wasting-Disease-CWD-in-Europe
why do we not want to do TSE transmission studies on chimpanzees $
5. A positive result from a chimpanzee challenged severly would likely create alarm in some circles even if the result could not be interpreted for man. I have a view that all these agents could be transmitted provided a large enough dose by appropriate routes was given and the animals kept long enough. Until the mechanisms of the species barrier are more clearly understood it might be best to retain that hypothesis.
snip...
R. BRADLEY
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080102222950/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/yb/1990/09/23001001.pdf
”The occurrence of CWD must be viewed against the contest of the locations in which it occurred. It was an incidental and unwelcome complication of the respective wildlife research programmes. Despite it’s subsequent recognition as a new disease of cervids, therefore justifying direct investigation, no specific research funding was forthcoming. The USDA veiwed it as a wildlife problem and consequently not their province!” page 26.
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080102193705/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m11b/tab01.pdf
In Confidence - Perceptions of unconventional slow virus diseases of animals in the USA - APRIL-MAY 1989 - G A H Wells
3. Prof. A. Robertson gave a brief account of BSE. The US approach was to accord it a very low profile indeed. Dr. A Thiermann showed the picture in the ''Independent'' with cattle being incinerated and thought this was a fanatical incident to be avoided in the US at all costs. ...
http://web.archive.org/web/20060307063531/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m11b/tab01.pdf
MAD COW DISEASE HAS BEEN IN THE USA FOR DECADES, AND I BELIEVE IT WAS IN THE USA FIRST, PLEASE SEE ;
Evidence That Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy Results from Feeding Infected Cattle Over the next 8-10 weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME.
snip...
The rancher was a ''dead stock'' feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle...
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20090505194948/http://bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m09/tab05.pdf
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20090505194948/http://bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m09a/tab01.pdf
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20090505194948/http://bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/yb/1987/06/10004001.pdf
PL1
Using in vitro prion replication for high sensitive detection of prions and prionlike proteins and for understanding mechanisms of transmission.
Claudio Soto
Mitchell Center for Alzheimer's diseases and related Brain disorders, Department of Neurology, University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
Prion and prion-like proteins are misfolded protein aggregates with the ability to selfpropagate to spread disease between cells, organs and in some cases across individuals. I n T r a n s m i s s i b l e s p o n g i f o r m encephalopathies (TSEs), prions are mostly composed by a misfolded form of the prion protein (PrPSc), which propagates by transmitting its misfolding to the normal prion protein (PrPC). The availability of a procedure to replicate prions in the laboratory may be important to study the mechanism of prion and prion-like spreading and to develop high sensitive detection of small quantities of misfolded proteins in biological fluids, tissues and environmental samples. Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA) is a simple, fast and efficient methodology to mimic prion replication in the test tube. PMCA is a platform technology that may enable amplification of any prion-like misfolded protein aggregating through a seeding/nucleation process. In TSEs, PMCA is able to detect the equivalent of one single molecule of infectious PrPSc and propagate prions that maintain high infectivity, strain properties and species specificity. Using PMCA we have been able to detect PrPSc in blood and urine of experimentally infected animals and humans affected by vCJD with high sensitivity and specificity. Recently, we have expanded the principles of PMCA to amplify amyloid-beta (Aβ) and alphasynuclein (α-syn) aggregates implicated in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, respectively. Experiments are ongoing to study the utility of this technology to detect Aβ and α-syn aggregates in samples of CSF and blood from patients affected by these diseases.
=========================
***Recently, we have been using PMCA to study the role of environmental prion contamination on the horizontal spreading of TSEs. These experiments have focused on the study of the interaction of prions with plants and environmentally relevant surfaces. Our results show that plants (both leaves and roots) bind tightly to prions present in brain extracts and excreta (urine and feces) and retain even small quantities of PrPSc for long periods of time. Strikingly, ingestion of prioncontaminated leaves and roots produced disease with a 100% attack rate and an incubation period not substantially longer than feeding animals directly with scrapie brain homogenate. Furthermore, plants can uptake prions from contaminated soil and transport them to different parts of the plant tissue (stem and leaves). Similarly, prions bind tightly to a variety of environmentally relevant surfaces, including stones, wood, metals, plastic, glass, cement, etc. Prion contaminated surfaces efficiently transmit prion disease when these materials were directly injected into the brain of animals and strikingly when the contaminated surfaces were just placed in the animal cage. These findings demonstrate that environmental materials can efficiently bind infectious prions and act as carriers of infectivity, suggesting that they may play an important role in the horizontal transmission of the disease.
========================
Since its invention 13 years ago, PMCA has helped to answer fundamental questions of prion propagation and has broad applications in research areas including the food industry, blood bank safety and human and veterinary disease diagnosis.
https://prion2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/programguide1.pdf
see ;
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.4161/pri.28467
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058630
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3567181/pdf/ppat.1003113.pdf
http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150210/srep08358/full/srep08358.html?WT.ec_id=SREP-639-20150217
http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247(15)00437-4
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission
Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission
Timm Konold1*, Stephen A. C. Hawkins2, Lisa C. Thurston3, Ben C. Maddison4, Kevin C. Gough5, Anthony Duarte1 and Hugh A. Simmons1
1 Animal Sciences Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency Weybridge, Addlestone, UK, 2 Pathology Department, Animal and Plant Health Agency Weybridge, Addlestone, UK, 3 Surveillance and Laboratory Services, Animal and Plant Health Agency Penrith, Penrith, UK, 4 ADAS UK, School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, UK, 5 School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, UK
Classical scrapie is an environmentally transmissible prion disease of sheep and goats. Prions can persist and remain potentially infectious in the environment for many years and thus pose a risk of infecting animals after re-stocking. In vitro studies using serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) have suggested that objects on a scrapie affected sheep farm could contribute to disease transmission. This in vivo study aimed to determine the role of field furniture (water troughs, feeding troughs, fencing, and other objects that sheep may rub against) used by a scrapie-infected sheep flock as a vector for disease transmission to scrapie-free lambs with the prion protein genotype VRQ/VRQ, which is associated with high susceptibility to classical scrapie. When the field furniture was placed in clean accommodation, sheep became infected when exposed to either a water trough (four out of five) or to objects used for rubbing (four out of seven). This field furniture had been used by the scrapie-infected flock 8 weeks earlier and had previously been shown to harbor scrapie prions by sPMCA. Sheep also became infected (20 out of 23) through exposure to contaminated field furniture placed within pasture not used by scrapie-infected sheep for 40 months, even though swabs from this furniture tested negative by PMCA. This infection rate decreased (1 out of 12) on the same paddock after replacement with clean field furniture. Twelve grazing sheep exposed to field furniture not in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for 18 months remained scrapie free. The findings of this study highlight the role of field furniture used by scrapie-infected sheep to act as a reservoir for disease re-introduction although infectivity declines considerably if the field furniture has not been in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for several months. PMCA may not be as sensitive as VRQ/VRQ sheep to test for environmental contamination.
snip...
Discussion
Classical scrapie is an environmentally transmissible disease because it has been reported in naïve, supposedly previously unexposed sheep placed in pastures formerly occupied by scrapie-infected sheep (4, 19, 20). Although the vector for disease transmission is not known, soil is likely to be an important reservoir for prions (2) where – based on studies in rodents – prions can adhere to minerals as a biologically active form (21) and remain infectious for more than 2 years (22). Similarly, chronic wasting disease (CWD) has re-occurred in mule deer housed in paddocks used by infected deer 2 years earlier, which was assumed to be through foraging and soil consumption (23).
Our study suggested that the risk of acquiring scrapie infection was greater through exposure to contaminated wooden, plastic, and metal surfaces via water or food troughs, fencing, and hurdles than through grazing. Drinking from a water trough used by the scrapie flock was sufficient to cause infection in sheep in a clean building. Exposure to fences and other objects used for rubbing also led to infection, which supported the hypothesis that skin may be a vector for disease transmission (9). The risk of these objects to cause infection was further demonstrated when 87% of 23 sheep presented with PrPSc in lymphoid tissue after grazing on one of the paddocks, which contained metal hurdles, a metal lamb creep and a water trough in contact with the scrapie flock up to 8 weeks earlier, whereas no infection had been demonstrated previously in sheep grazing on this paddock, when equipped with new fencing and field furniture. When the contaminated furniture and fencing were removed, the infection rate dropped significantly to 8% of 12 sheep, with soil of the paddock as the most likely source of infection caused by shedding of prions from the scrapie-infected sheep in this paddock up to a week earlier.
This study also indicated that the level of contamination of field furniture sufficient to cause infection was dependent on two factors: stage of incubation period and time of last use by scrapie-infected sheep. Drinking from a water trough that had been used by scrapie sheep in the predominantly pre-clinical phase did not appear to cause infection, whereas infection was shown in sheep drinking from the water trough used by scrapie sheep in the later stage of the disease. It is possible that contamination occurred through shedding of prions in saliva, which may have contaminated the surface of the water trough and subsequently the water when it was refilled. Contamination appeared to be sufficient to cause infection only if the trough was in contact with sheep that included clinical cases. Indeed, there is an increased risk of bodily fluid infectivity with disease progression in scrapie (24) and CWD (25) based on PrPSc detection by sPMCA. Although ultraviolet light and heat under natural conditions do not inactivate prions (26), furniture in contact with the scrapie flock, which was assumed to be sufficiently contaminated to cause infection, did not act as vector for disease if not used for 18 months, which suggest that the weathering process alone was sufficient to inactivate prions.
PrPSc detection by sPMCA is increasingly used as a surrogate for infectivity measurements by bioassay in sheep or mice. In this reported study, however, the levels of PrPSc present in the environment were below the limit of detection of the sPMCA method, yet were still sufficient to cause infection of in-contact animals. In the present study, the outdoor objects were removed from the infected flock 8 weeks prior to sampling and were positive by sPMCA at very low levels (2 out of 37 reactions). As this sPMCA assay also yielded 2 positive reactions out of 139 in samples from the scrapie-free farm, the sPMCA assay could not detect PrPSc on any of the objects above the background of the assay. False positive reactions with sPMCA at a low frequency associated with de novo formation of infectious prions have been reported (27, 28). This is in contrast to our previous study where we demonstrated that outdoor objects that had been in contact with the scrapie-infected flock up to 20 days prior to sampling harbored PrPSc that was detectable by sPMCA analysis [4 out of 15 reactions (12)] and was significantly more positive by the assay compared to analogous samples from the scrapie-free farm. This discrepancy could be due to the use of a different sPMCA substrate between the studies that may alter the efficiency of amplification of the environmental PrPSc. In addition, the present study had a longer timeframe between the objects being in contact with the infected flock and sampling, which may affect the levels of extractable PrPSc. Alternatively, there may be potentially patchy contamination of this furniture with PrPSc, which may have been missed by swabbing. The failure of sPMCA to detect CWD-associated PrP in saliva from clinically affected deer despite confirmation of infectivity in saliva-inoculated transgenic mice was associated with as yet unidentified inhibitors in saliva (29), and it is possible that the sensitivity of sPMCA is affected by other substances in the tested material. In addition, sampling of amplifiable PrPSc and subsequent detection by sPMCA may be more difficult from furniture exposed to weather, which is supported by the observation that PrPSc was detected by sPMCA more frequently in indoor than outdoor furniture (12). A recent experimental study has demonstrated that repeated cycles of drying and wetting of prion-contaminated soil, equivalent to what is expected under natural weathering conditions, could reduce PMCA amplification efficiency and extend the incubation period in hamsters inoculated with soil samples (30). This seems to apply also to this study even though the reduction in infectivity was more dramatic in the sPMCA assays than in the sheep model. Sheep were not kept until clinical end-point, which would have enabled us to compare incubation periods, but the lack of infection in sheep exposed to furniture that had not been in contact with scrapie sheep for a longer time period supports the hypothesis that prion degradation and subsequent loss of infectivity occurs even under natural conditions.
In conclusion, the results in the current study indicate that removal of furniture that had been in contact with scrapie-infected animals should be recommended, particularly since cleaning and decontamination may not effectively remove scrapie infectivity (31), even though infectivity declines considerably if the pasture and the field furniture have not been in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for several months. As sPMCA failed to detect PrPSc in furniture that was subjected to weathering, even though exposure led to infection in sheep, this method may not always be reliable in predicting the risk of scrapie infection through environmental contamination. These results suggest that the VRQ/VRQ sheep model may be more sensitive than sPMCA for the detection of environmentally associated scrapie, and suggest that extremely low levels of scrapie contamination are able to cause infection in susceptible sheep genotypes.
Keywords: classical scrapie, prion, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, sheep, field furniture, reservoir, serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fvets.2015.00032/full
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
*** Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission ***
http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2015/12/objects-in-contact-with-classical.html
Circulation of prions within dust on a scrapie affected farm
Kevin C Gough1, Claire A Baker2, Hugh A Simmons3, Steve A Hawkins3 and Ben C Maddison2*
Abstract
Prion diseases are fatal neurological disorders that affect humans and animals. Scrapie of sheep/goats and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) of deer/elk are contagious prion diseases where environmental reservoirs have a direct link to the transmission of disease. Using protein misfolding cyclic amplification we demonstrate that scrapie PrPSc can be detected within circulating dusts that are present on a farm that is naturally contaminated with sheep scrapie. The presence of infectious scrapie within airborne dusts may represent a possible route of infection and illustrates the difficulties that may be associated with the effective decontamination of such scrapie affected premises.
snip...
Discussion
We present biochemical data illustrating the airborne movement of scrapie containing material within a contaminated farm environment. We were able to detect scrapie PrPSc within extracts from dusts collected over a 70 day period, in the absence of any sheep activity. We were also able to detect scrapie PrPSc within dusts collected within pasture at 30 m but not at 60 m distance away from the scrapie contaminated buildings, suggesting that the chance of contamination of pasture by scrapie contaminated dusts decreases with distance from contaminated farm buildings. PrPSc amplification by sPMCA has been shown to correlate with infectivity and amplified products have been shown to be infectious [14,15]. These experiments illustrate the potential for low dose scrapie infectivity to be present within such samples. We estimate low ng levels of scrapie positive brain equivalent were deposited per m2 over 70 days, in a barn previously occupied by sheep affected with scrapie. This movement of dusts and the accumulation of low levels of scrapie infectivity within this environment may in part explain previous observations where despite stringent pen decontamination regimens healthy lambs still became scrapie infected after apparent exposure from their environment alone [16]. The presence of sPMCA seeding activity and by inference, infectious prions within dusts, and their potential for airborne dissemination is highly novel and may have implications for the spread of scrapie within infected premises. The low level circulation and accumulation of scrapie prion containing dust material within the farm environment will likely impede the efficient decontamination of such scrapie contaminated buildings unless all possible reservoirs of dust are removed. Scrapie containing dusts could possibly infect animals during feeding and drinking, and respiratory and conjunctival routes may also be involved. It has been demonstrated that scrapie can be efficiently transmitted via the nasal route in sheep [17], as is also the case for CWD in both murine models and in white tailed deer [18-20].
The sources of dust borne prions are unknown but it seems reasonable to assume that faecal, urine, skin, parturient material and saliva-derived prions may contribute to this mobile environmental reservoir of infectivity. This work highlights a possible transmission route for scrapie within the farm environment, and this is likely to be paralleled in CWD which shows strong similarities with scrapie in terms of prion dissemination and disease transmission. The data indicate that the presence of scrapie prions in dust is likely to make the control of these diseases a considerable challenge.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4397813/pdf/13567_2015_Article_176.pdf
Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES
Title: Scrapie transmits to white-tailed deer by the oral route and has a molecular profile similar to chronic wasting disease
Authors
item Greenlee, Justin item Moore, S - item Smith, Jodi - item Kunkle, Robert item West Greenlee, M -
Submitted to: American College of Veterinary Pathologists Meeting Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: August 12, 2015 Publication Date: N/A Technical Abstract: The purpose of this work was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer (WTD) to the agent of sheep scrapie and to compare the resultant PrPSc to that of the original inoculum and chronic wasting disease (CWD). We inoculated WTD by a natural route of exposure (concurrent oral and intranasal (IN); n=5) with a US scrapie isolate. All scrapie-inoculated deer had evidence of PrPSc accumulation. PrPSc was detected in lymphoid tissues at preclinical time points, and deer necropsied after 28 months post-inoculation had clinical signs, spongiform encephalopathy, and widespread distribution of PrPSc in neural and lymphoid tissues. Western blotting (WB) revealed PrPSc with 2 distinct molecular profiles. WB on cerebral cortex had a profile similar to the original scrapie inoculum, whereas WB of brainstem, cerebellum, or lymph nodes revealed PrPSc with a higher profile resembling CWD. Homogenates with the 2 distinct profiles from WTD with clinical scrapie were further passaged to mice expressing cervid prion protein and intranasally to sheep and WTD. In cervidized mice, the two inocula have distinct incubation times. Sheep inoculated intranasally with WTD derived scrapie developed disease, but only after inoculation with the inoculum that had a scrapie-like profile. The WTD study is ongoing, but deer in both inoculation groups are positive for PrPSc by rectal mucosal biopsy. In summary, this work demonstrates that WTD are susceptible to the agent of scrapie, two distinct molecular profiles of PrPSc are present in the tissues of affected deer, and inoculum of either profile readily passes to deer.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=317901
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=260467
White-tailed Deer are Susceptible to Scrapie by Natural Route of Infection
Jodi D. Smith, Justin J. Greenlee, and Robert A. Kunkle; Virus and Prion Research Unit, National Animal Disease Center, USDA-ARS
Interspecies transmission studies afford the opportunity to better understand the potential host range and origins of prion diseases. Previous experiments demonstrated that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep-derived scrapie by intracranial inoculation. The purpose of this study was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer to scrapie after a natural route of exposure. Deer (n=5) were inoculated by concurrent oral (30 ml) and intranasal (1 ml) instillation of a 10% (wt/vol) brain homogenate derived from a sheep clinically affected with scrapie. Non-inoculated deer were maintained as negative controls. All deer were observed daily for clinical signs. Deer were euthanized and necropsied when neurologic disease was evident, and tissues were examined for abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot (WB). One animal was euthanized 15 months post-inoculation (MPI) due to an injury. At that time, examination of obex and lymphoid tissues by IHC was positive, but WB of obex and colliculus were negative. Remaining deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 MPI. Tissues from these deer were positive for scrapie by IHC and WB. Tissues with PrPSc immunoreactivity included brain, tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph nodes, hemal node, Peyer’s patches, and spleen. This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by potential natural routes of inoculation. In-depth analysis of tissues will be done to determine similarities between scrapie in deer after intracranial and oral/intranasal inoculation and chronic wasting disease resulting from similar routes of inoculation.
see full text ;
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/Reports/2010/report-cwal-2010.pdf
PO-039: A comparison of scrapie and chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer
Justin Greenlee, Jodi Smith, Eric Nicholson US Dept. Agriculture; Agricultural Research Service, National Animal Disease Center; Ames, IA USA
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/03-Prion6-2-Transmission-and-strains.pdf
White-tailed deer are susceptible to the agent of sheep scrapie by intracerebral inoculation
snip...
It is unlikely that CWD will be eradicated from free-ranging cervids, and the disease is likely to continue to spread geographically [10]. However, the potential that white-tailed deer may be susceptible to sheep scrapie by a natural route presents an additional confounding factor to halting the spread of CWD. This leads to the additional speculations that
1) infected deer could serve as a reservoir to infect sheep with scrapie offering challenges to scrapie eradication efforts and
2) CWD spread need not remain geographically confined to current endemic areas, but could occur anywhere that sheep with scrapie and susceptible cervids cohabitate.
This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by intracerebral inoculation with a high attack rate and that the disease that results has similarities to CWD. These experiments will be repeated with a more natural route of inoculation to determine the likelihood of the potential transmission of sheep scrapie to white-tailed deer. If scrapie were to occur in white-tailed deer, results of this study indicate that it would be detected as a TSE, but may be difficult to differentiate from CWD without in-depth biochemical analysis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3199251/?tool=pubmed
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/10/white-tailed-deer-are-susceptible-to.html
2012
PO-039: A comparison of scrapie and chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer
Justin Greenlee, Jodi Smith, Eric Nicholson US Dept. Agriculture; Agricultural Research Service, National Animal Disease Center; Ames, IA USA
snip...
The results of this study suggest that there are many similarities in the manifestation of CWD and scrapie in WTD after IC inoculation including early and widespread presence of PrPSc in lymphoid tissues, clinical signs of depression and weight loss progressing to wasting, and an incubation time of 21-23 months. Moreover, western blots (WB) done on brain material from the obex region have a molecular profile similar to CWD and distinct from tissues of the cerebrum or the scrapie inoculum. However, results of microscopic and IHC examination indicate that there are differences between the lesions expected in CWD and those that occur in deer with scrapie: amyloid plaques were not noted in any sections of brain examined from these deer and the pattern of immunoreactivity by IHC was diffuse rather than plaque-like.
*** After a natural route of exposure, 100% of WTD were susceptible to scrapie.
Deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 months PI. Tissues from these deer were positive for PrPSc by IHC and WB. Similar to IC inoculated deer, samples from these deer exhibited two different molecular profiles: samples from obex resembled CWD whereas those from cerebrum were similar to the original scrapie inoculum. On further examination by WB using a panel of antibodies, the tissues from deer with scrapie exhibit properties differing from tissues either from sheep with scrapie or WTD with CWD. Samples from WTD with CWD or sheep with scrapie are strongly immunoreactive when probed with mAb P4, however, samples from WTD with scrapie are only weakly immunoreactive. In contrast, when probed with mAb’s 6H4 or SAF 84, samples from sheep with scrapie and WTD with CWD are weakly immunoreactive and samples from WTD with scrapie are strongly positive. This work demonstrates that WTD are highly susceptible to sheep scrapie, but on first passage, scrapie in WTD is differentiable from CWD.
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/03-Prion6-2-Transmission-and-strains.pdf
2011
*** After a natural route of exposure, 100% of white-tailed deer were susceptible to scrapie.
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/Reports/2011/report-cwal-2011.pdf
White-tailed Deer are Susceptible to Scrapie by Natural Route of Infection
Jodi D. Smith, Justin J. Greenlee, and Robert A. Kunkle; Virus and Prion Research Unit, National Animal Disease Center, USDA-ARS
Interspecies transmission studies afford the opportunity to better understand the potential host range and origins of prion diseases. Previous experiments demonstrated that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep-derived scrapie by intracranial inoculation. The purpose of this study was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer to scrapie after a natural route of exposure. Deer (n=5) were inoculated by concurrent oral (30 ml) and intranasal (1 ml) instillation of a 10% (wt/vol) brain homogenate derived from a sheep clinically affected with scrapie. Non-inoculated deer were maintained as negative controls. All deer were observed daily for clinical signs. Deer were euthanized and necropsied when neurologic disease was evident, and tissues were examined for abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot (WB). One animal was euthanized 15 months post-inoculation (MPI) due to an injury. At that time, examination of obex and lymphoid tissues by IHC was positive, but WB of obex and colliculus were negative. Remaining deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 MPI. Tissues from these deer were positive for scrapie by IHC and WB. Tissues with PrPSc immunoreactivity included brain, tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph nodes, hemal node, Peyer’s patches, and spleen. This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by potential natural routes of inoculation. In-depth analysis of tissues will be done to determine similarities between scrapie in deer after intracranial and oral/intranasal inoculation and chronic wasting disease resulting from similar routes of inoculation.
see full text ;
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/Reports/2010/report-cwal-2010.pdf
Monday, November 3, 2014
Persistence of ovine scrapie infectivity in a farm environment following cleaning and decontamination
http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2014/11/persistence-of-ovine-scrapie.html
PPo3-22:
Detection of Environmentally Associated PrPSc on a Farm with Endemic Scrapie
Ben C. Maddison,1 Claire A. Baker,1 Helen C. Rees,1 Linda A. Terry,2 Leigh Thorne,2 Susan J. Belworthy2 and Kevin C. Gough3 1ADAS-UK LTD; Department of Biology; University of Leicester; Leicester, UK; 2Veterinary Laboratories Agency; Surry, KT UK; 3Department of Veterinary Medicine and Science; University of Nottingham; Sutton Bonington, Loughborough UK
Key words: scrapie, evironmental persistence, sPMCA
Ovine scrapie shows considerable horizontal transmission, yet the routes of transmission and specifically the role of fomites in transmission remain poorly defined. Here we present biochemical data demonstrating that on a scrapie-affected sheep farm, scrapie prion contamination is widespread. It was anticipated at the outset that if prions contaminate the environment that they would be there at extremely low levels, as such the most sensitive method available for the detection of PrPSc, serial Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (sPMCA), was used in this study. We investigated the distribution of environmental scrapie prions by applying ovine sPMCA to samples taken from a range of surfaces that were accessible to animals and could be collected by use of a wetted foam swab. Prion was amplified by sPMCA from a number of these environmental swab samples including those taken from metal, plastic and wooden surfaces, both in the indoor and outdoor environment. At the time of sampling there had been no sheep contact with these areas for at least 20 days prior to sampling indicating that prions persist for at least this duration in the environment. These data implicate inanimate objects as environmental reservoirs of prion infectivity which are likely to contribute to disease transmission.
http://www.prion2010.org/bilder/prion_2010_program_latest_w_posters_4_.pdf?139&PHPSESSID=a30a38202cfec579000b77af81be3099
Veterinary Pathology Onlinevet.sagepub.com Published online before print February 27, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0300985814524798 Veterinary Pathology February 27, 2014 0300985814524798
Lesion Profiling and Subcellular Prion Localization of Cervid Chronic Wasting Disease in Domestic Cats
D. M. Seelig1⇑ A. V. Nalls1 M. Flasik2 V. Frank1 S. Eaton2 C. K. Mathiason1 E. A. Hoover1 1Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA 2Department of Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA D. M. Seelig, University of Minnesota, Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Room 339 VetMedCtrS, 6192A (Campus Delivery Code), 1352 Boyd Ave, St Paul, MN 55108, USA. Email address: dseelig@umn.edu
Abstract
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an efficiently transmitted, fatal, and progressive prion disease of cervids with an as yet to be fully clarified host range. While outbred domestic cats (Felis catus) have recently been shown to be susceptible to experimental CWD infection, the neuropathologic features of the infection are lacking. Such information is vital to provide diagnostic power in the event of natural interspecies transmission and insights into host and strain interactions in interspecies prion infection. Using light microscopy and immunohistochemistry, we detail the topographic pattern of neural spongiosis (the “lesion profile”) and the distribution of misfolded prion protein in the primary and secondary passage of feline CWD (FelCWD). We also evaluated cellular and subcellular associations between misfolded prion protein (PrPD) and central nervous system neurons and glial cell populations. From these studies, we (1) describe the novel neuropathologic profile of FelCWD, which is distinct from either cervid CWD or feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE), and (2) provide evidence of serial passage-associated interspecies prion adaptation. In addition, we demonstrate through confocal analysis the successful co-localization of PrPD with neurons, astrocytes, microglia, lysosomes, and synaptophysin, which, in part, implicates each of these in the neuropathology of FelCWD. In conclusion, this work illustrates the simultaneous role of both host and strain in the development of a unique FelCWD neuropathologic profile and that such a profile can be used to discriminate between FelCWD and FSE.
prion chronic wasting disease immunohistochemistry interspecies cat feline spongiform encephalopathy transmissible spongiform encephalopathy adaptation species barrier
http://vet.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/02/27/0300985814524798.abstract
Monday, August 8, 2011 Susceptibility of Domestic Cats to CWD Infection
Oral.29: Susceptibility of Domestic Cats to CWD Infection
Amy Nalls, Nicholas J. Haley, Jeanette Hayes-Klug, Kelly Anderson, Davis M. Seelig, Dan S. Bucy, Susan L. Kraft, Edward A. Hoover and Candace K. Mathiason†
Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO USA†Presenting author; Email: ckm@lamar.colostate.edu
Domestic and non-domestic cats have been shown to be susceptible to one prion disease, feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE), thought to be transmitted through consumption of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) contaminated meat. Because domestic and free ranging felids scavenge cervid carcasses, including those in CWD affected areas, we evaluated the susceptibility of domestic cats to CWD infection experimentally. Groups of n = 5 cats each were inoculated either intracerebrally (IC) or orally (PO) with CWD deer brain homogenate. Between 40–43 months following IC inoculation, two cats developed mild but progressive symptoms including weight loss, anorexia, polydipsia, patterned motor behaviors and ataxia—ultimately mandating euthanasia. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the brain of one of these animals (vs. two age-matched controls) performed just before euthanasia revealed increased ventricular system volume, more prominent sulci, and T2 hyperintensity deep in the white matter of the frontal hemisphere and in cortical grey distributed through the brain, likely representing inflammation or gliosis. PrPRES and widely distributed peri-neuronal vacuoles were demonstrated in the brains of both animals by immunodetection assays. No clinical signs of TSE have been detected in the remaining primary passage cats after 80 months pi. Feline-adapted CWD was sub-passaged into groups (n=4 or 5) of cats by IC, PO, and IP/SQ routes. Currently, at 22 months pi, all five IC inoculated cats are demonstrating abnormal behavior including increasing aggressiveness, pacing, and hyper responsiveness.
*** Two of these cats have developed rear limb ataxia. Although the limited data from this ongoing study must be considered preliminary, they raise the potential for cervid-to-feline transmission in nature.
http://www.prion2011.ca/files/PRION_2011_-_Posters_(May_5-11).pdf
http://felinespongiformencephalopathyfse.blogspot.com/2011/08/susceptibility-of-domestic-cats-to-cwd.html
AD.63:
Susceptibility of domestic cats to chronic wasting disease
Amy V.Nalls,1 Candace Mathiason,1 Davis Seelig,2 Susan Kraft,1 Kevin Carnes,1 Kelly Anderson,1 Jeanette Hayes-Klug1 and Edward A. Hoover1 1Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO USA; 2University of Minnesota; Saint Paul, MN USA
Domestic and nondomestic cats have been shown to be susceptible to feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE), almost certainly caused by consumption of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)-contaminated meat. Because domestic and free-ranging nondomestic felids scavenge cervid carcasses, including those in areas affected by chronic wasting disease (CWD), we evaluated the susceptibility of the domestic cat (Felis catus) to CWD infection experimentally. Cohorts of 5 cats each were inoculated either intracerebrally (IC) or orally (PO) with CWD-infected deer brain. At 40 and 42 mo post-inoculation, two IC-inoculated cats developed signs consistent with prion disease, including a stilted gait, weight loss, anorexia, polydipsia, patterned motor behaviors, head and tail tremors, and ataxia, and progressed to terminal disease within 5 mo. Brains from these two cats were pooled and inoculated into cohorts of cats by IC, PO, and intraperitoneal and subcutaneous (IP/SC) routes. Upon subpassage, feline-adapted CWD (FelCWD) was transmitted to all IC-inoculated cats with a decreased incubation period of 23 to 27 mo. FelCWD was detected in the brains of all the symptomatic cats by western blotting and immunohistochemistry and abnormalities were seen in magnetic resonance imaging, including multifocal T2 fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) signal hyper-intensities, ventricular size increases, prominent sulci, and white matter tract cavitation. Currently, 3 of 4 IP/SQ and 2 of 4 PO inoculared cats have developed abnormal behavior patterns consistent with the early stage of feline CWD.
*** These results demonstrate that CWD can be transmitted and adapted to the domestic cat, thus raising the issue of potential cervid-to- feline transmission in nature.
http://www.prion2013.ca/tiny_uploads/forms/Scientific-Program.pdf
www.landesbioscience.com
PO-081: Chronic wasting disease in the cat— Similarities to feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE)
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/04-Prion6-2-Pathogenesis-and-pathology.pdf
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2012/05/chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-prion2012.html
FELINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY FSE
http://felinespongiformencephalopathyfse.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html
http://felinespongiformencephalopathyfse.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Prion Remains Infectious after Passage through Digestive System of American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2012/10/prion-remains-infectious-after-passage.html
Chronic Wasting Disease Susceptibility of Four North American Rodents
Chad J. Johnson1*, Jay R. Schneider2, Christopher J. Johnson2, Natalie A. Mickelsen2, Julia A. Langenberg3, Philip N. Bochsler4, Delwyn P. Keane4, Daniel J. Barr4, and Dennis M. Heisey2 1University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Comparative Biosciences, 1656 Linden Drive, Madison WI 53706, USA 2US Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center, 6006 Schroeder Road, Madison WI 53711, USA 3Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 101 South Webster Street, Madison WI 53703, USA 4Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, 445 Easterday Lane, Madison WI 53706, USA *Corresponding author email: cjohnson@svm.vetmed.wisc.edu
We intracerebrally challenged four species of native North American rodents that inhabit locations undergoing cervid chronic wasting disease (CWD) epidemics. The species were: deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), white-footed mice (P. leucopus), meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus), and red-backed voles (Myodes gapperi). The inocula were prepared from the brains of hunter-harvested white-tailed deer from Wisconsin that tested positive for CWD. Meadow voles proved to be most susceptible, with a median incubation period of 272 days. Immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry confirmed the presence of PrPd in the brains of all challenged meadow voles. Subsequent passages in meadow voles lead to a significant reduction in incubation period. The disease progression in red-backed voles, which are very closely related to the European bank vole (M. glareolus) which have been demonstrated to be sensitive to a number of TSEs, was slower than in meadow voles with a median incubation period of 351 days. We sequenced the meadow vole and red-backed vole Prnp genes and found three amino acid (AA) differences outside of the signal and GPI anchor sequences. Of these differences (T56-, G90S, S170N; read-backed vole:meadow vole), S170N is particularly intriguing due its postulated involvement in "rigid loop" structure and CWD susceptibility. Deer mice did not exhibit disease signs until nearly 1.5 years post-inoculation, but appear to be exhibiting a high degree of disease penetrance. White-footed mice have an even longer incubation period but are also showing high penetrance. Second passage experiments show significant shortening of incubation periods. Meadow voles in particular appear to be interesting lab models for CWD. These rodents scavenge carrion, and are an important food source for many predator species. Furthermore, these rodents enter human and domestic livestock food chains by accidental inclusion in grain and forage. Further investigation of these species as potential hosts, bridge species, and reservoirs of CWD is required.
please see ;
http://www.cwd-info.org/pdf/3rd_CWD_Symposium_utah.pdf
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2009/08/third-international-cwd-symposium-july.html
Monday, April 04, 2016
*** Limited amplification of chronic wasting disease prions in the peripheral tissues of intracerebrally inoculated cattle
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2016/04/limited-amplification-of-chronic.html
I7
Early Trafficking and Dissemination of CWD Prions in Deer
Edward A. Hoover1*, Clare E. Hoover1, Davin M. Henderson1, Nathaniel D. Denkers1, Kristin A. Davenport1, Shannon Bartelt-Hunt2, Alan M. Elder1, Anthony E. Kincaid3, 4, Jason C. Bartz3, Mark D. Zabel1, Candace K. Mathiason1 1Prion Research Center, Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA 2Department of Civil Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Prion2015 Program Guide 10 invited speakers
PRION 2015
Efficient horizontal infection is a hallmark of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in freeranging cervids. The mechanisms and pathways that enable this remarkable process, however, remain incompletely understood--in particular the facile transmucosal entry, exit, and environmental persistence of CWD prions. We have focused on trans-mucosal CWD infection in white-tailed deer, specifically on early prion tissue tropism and later stage prion shedding and association with environmental constituents using modifications of real-time quaking-induced conversion combined with amplified immunohistochemistry. We have documented very early trans-mucosal prion passage (within hours), followed by uptake and amplification in upper digestive tract lymphoid t i s s u e s ( 4 w e e k s ) , and dissemination to more distant lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissue sites (8-12 weeks). We have used quantitative approaches to realtime conversion to estimate the relatively low (i.e. vs. tissues) prion concentrations in body fluids and excreta; i.e. >100 (cervidized mouse) LD50 are shed daily in the urine of one CWD infected deer. Using similar methods, we have also demonstrated and quantified the impressive affinity of CWD prions for both silty clay loam (a major environmental soil constituent) and metal surfaces. Mucosal uptake, excretion, and environmental interactions are central to this most transmissible of prion diseases.
https://prion2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/programguide1.pdf
PMCA Detection of CWD Infection in Cervid and Non-Cervid Species
Hoover, Edward Arthur Colorado State University-Fort Collins, Fort Collins, CO, United States
ABSTRACT Chronic wasting disease (CWD) of deer and elk is an emerging highly transmissible prion disease now recognized in 18 States, 2 Canadian provinces, and Korea.
***We have shown that Infected deer harbor and shed high levels of infectious prions in saliva, blood, urine, and feces, and in the tissues generating those body fluids and excreta, thereby leading to facile transmission by direct contact and environmental contamination.
***We have also shown that CWD can infect some non-cervid species, thus the potential risk CWD represents to domestic animal species and to humans remains unknown.
Whether prions borne in blood, saliva, nasal fluids, milk, or excreta are generated or modified in the proximate peripheral tissue sites, may differ in subtle ways from those generated in brain, or may be adapted for mucosal infection remain open questions.
The increasing parallels in the pathogenesis between prion diseases and human neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, add relevance to CWD as a transmissible protein misfolding disease.
The overall goal of this work is to elucidate the process of CWD prion transmission from mucosal secretory and excretory tissue sites by addressing these questions:
snip...
Public Health Relevance Chronic wasting disease (CWD) of deer and elk is an emergent highly transmissible prion disease now recognized throughout the USA as well as in Canada and Korea. We have shown that infected deer harbor and shed high levels of infectious prions in saliva, blood, urine, and feces thereby leading to transmission by direct contact and environmental contamination. In that our studies have also shown that CWD can infect some non-cervid species, the potential risk CWD may represents to domestic animal species and humans remains unknown. The increasing parallels in the development of major human neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and prion diseases add relevance to CWD as a model of a transmissible protein misfolding disease. Understanding how infectious misfolded proteins (prions) are generated and transmitted will aid in interrupting, treating, and managing the risks associated with these agents and the diseases they cause.
http://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-NS061902-05
Prion Amplification and Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling Refine Detection of Prion Infection
Infected animals shed prions into the environment through saliva, feces, urine and even antler velvet15,20,21,22,23,24. Studies have successfully transmitted PrPCWD through a single dose of urine or feces from animals displaying signs of CWD, indicating that at the time of clinical disease sufficient prions are shed to result in an infectious dose24,25. However, at what stage(s) of disease animals shed prions into the environment remains unclear. If shedding occurs early in disease, a sub-clinical animal may not only shed prions into the environment, increasing the infectious reservoir, but may also transmit CWD horizontally to their associates.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep08358#ref-link-section-27
Keywords: RT-QuIC, chronic wasting disease, diagnosis, feces, prion, surveillance, urine
Authors: Theodore R. John, Hermann M. Schätzl and Sabine Gilch
Theodore R. John Department of Veterinary Sciences; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA
Hermann M. Schätzl Department of Veterinary Sciences; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA; Department of Molecular Biology; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA; Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; Department of Comparative Biology and Experimental Medicine; University of Calgary; Calgary, AB Canada
Sabine Gilch Corresponding author: sgilch@ucalgary.ca Department of Veterinary Sciences; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA; Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; Department of Ecosystem and Public Health; University of Calgary; Calgary, AB Canada
Abstract:
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease of captive and free-ranging deer (Odocoileus spp), elk (Cervus elaphus nelsonii) and moose (Alces alces shirasi). Unlike in most other prion diseases, in CWD prions are shed in urine and feces, which most likely contributes to the horizontal transmission within and between cervid species. To date, CWD ante-mortem diagnosis is only possible by immunohistochemical detection of protease resistant prion protein (PrPSc) in tonsil or recto-anal mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (RAMALT) biopsies, which requires anesthesia of animals. We report on detection of CWD prions in urine collected from pre-symptomatic deer and in fecal extracts by using real time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC). This assay can be useful for non-invasive pre-symptomatic diagnosis and surveillance of CWD.
Received: February 7, 2013; Accepted: March 24, 2013; Published Online: April 10, 2013
snip...
Introduction
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is to date the most contagious prion disease and affects captive and free-ranging elk, deer and moose in North America.1,2 The disease is caused by the accumulation of an abnormally folded isoform of the cellular prion protein PrPC, denominated PrPSc.3,4 CWD is the cervid equivalent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), scrapie in sheep and goat5 or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans.6 Although transmission studies of CWD prions to humanized transgenic mice or non-human primates suggest a strong species barrier,7-9 recent in vitro studies have demonstrated that human PrP can be converted by CWD prions into PrPSc upon adaptation.10 Therefore, a potential for zoonotic transmission, as exemplified by BSE,11 cannot be completely excluded.
A huge body of evidence suggests that CWD can be efficiently transmitted horizontally within and between cervid species,12 which may be the reason for geographical spread and increase in case numbers. Horizontal transmission is explained by the rather unusual peripheral distribution of prions in CWD affected animals and the high susceptibility to the disease by oral infection.13,14 Unlike in most other prion diseases, CWD prions can be found in a wide variety of tissues, such as skeletal and cardiac muscle15,16 or kidney,17 in addition to the lymphoreticular system and blood.18 Furthermore, they are shed in significant amounts in saliva,18,19 urine19 or feces,20 which enables oral infection of animals by foraging on contaminated pastures.
In addition, it has been demonstrated that prions can persist in soil21 and that water in endemic areas can contain CWDassociated PrPSc.22
snip...
We demonstrate that CWD prions are detectable in urine of orally infected deer prior to the onset of clinical symptoms. Furthermore, we show that fecal extracts can be used as a seed in RT-QuIC assays. Thereby, we were able to detect CWD prions in fecal extracts collected at later stages of the disease. This study provides the first evidence that RT-QuIC can be successfully used for the preclinical diagnosis of CWD in specimens that are available by non-invasive methods.
snip...
In summary, we demonstrate that CWD prions can be detected by RT-QuIC in urine of orally infected white-tailed deer and mule deer at a pre-symptomatic stage of the disease.
snip...
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/article/24430/2013PRION0009R.pdf
2008
Excretion of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Infectivity in Urine
Luisa Gregori, Gabor G. Kovacs, Irina Alexeeva, Herbert Budka, and Robert G. Rohwer
To the extent that results from the hamster model can be generalized to other TSE infections (and it has so far proven highly predictive), then even the very low concentrations of infectivity measured here could result in substantial environmental contamination. Several liters of urine and several thousand doses of TSE infectivity may be excreted daily over the course of the illness; even higher titers might be excreted by an animal with nephritis. The high stability of TSE infectivity would account for its persistence in pasture years after infected animals are removed (31). Recent studies have shown that infectivity that is adsorbed and immobilized by soil minerals (32) can still infect hamsters by oral exposure 29 months later (33). Our study also warns of a possible risk from TSE contamination to fertility hormones and other medicinal products extracted from human urine.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/9/08-0259_article
Sunday, November 10, 2013
LARGE CJD TSE PRION POTENTIAL CASE STUDY AMONG HUMANS WHO TAKE DEER ANTLER VELVET WILL BE ONGOING FOR YEARS IF NOT DECADES, but who's cares $
http://creutzfeldt-jakob-disease.blogspot.com/2013/11/large-cjd-tse-prion-potential-case.html
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health; Meeting [Docket No. APHIS-2016-0007] Singeltary Submission
http://animalhealthreportpriontse.blogspot.com/2016/02/secretarys-advisory-committee-on-animal.html
Friday, March 18, 2016 CFSAN
Constituent Update: FDA Announces Final Rule on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy BSE MAD COW TSE PRION Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition - Constituent Update
http://bseusa.blogspot.com/2016/03/cfsan-constituent-update-fda-announces.html
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
*** Docket No. FDA-2016-N-0321 Risk Assessment of Foodborne Illness Associated with Pathogens from Produce Grown in Fields Amended with Untreated Biological Soil Amendments of Animal Origin; Request for Comments, Scientific Data, and Information Singeltary Submission ***
http://animalhealthreportpriontse.blogspot.com/2016/03/docket-no-fda-2016-n-0321-risk.html
Monday, March 28, 2016
National Scrapie Eradication Program February 2016 Monthly Report
http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2016/03/national-scrapie-eradication-program.html
*** Docket No. APHIS-2007-0127 Scrapie in Sheep and Goats Terry Singeltary Sr. Submission ***
Monday, November 16, 2015
*** Docket No. APHIS-2007-0127 Scrapie in Sheep and Goats Terry Singeltary Sr. Submission ***
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2007-0127-0032
http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2015/11/docket-no-aphis-2007-0127-scrapie-in.html
The body condition of the reindeer was below medium, but it had still some adipose tissue left. In cervids older than 18 months, we routinely collect sample of the brain for CWD examination as part of the national surveillance program for CWD, and that was also done in this reindeer, Vikøren continues.
The head of the Norwegian Reference Laboratory for animal prion diseases at Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Sylvie Benestad, states that the brain sample from the reindeer was positive for the detection of prions both by the first routine test (ELISA-test) and in two supplementary tests (Western Blotting, Immunohistochemistry).
SEE VIDEO ;
https://dreambroker.com/channel/8scfyvow/iframe/lyhz7ayc
The disease
Chronic Wasting Disease is a contagious neurological disease that attacks the brain of cervids. CWD belongs to a group of diseases known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), in which the infectious agents are known to be the prion protein, a normal protein that misfolds and destroys the brain. The development of the disease is slow and affected cervids show loss of body condition and altered behaviour. Death is inevitable once clinical disease occurs.
CWD is an endemic disease in North America, in which natural infections occurs in mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), white-tailed deer (O. virginianus), elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) og moose (Alces alces shirasi).The reindeer from Norway represents the first detection of CWD in Europe. Also, this is the first detection of a natural infection in reindeer worldwide.
The brain from the reinsdeer. Photo: Sylvie
Lafond Benestad, Norwegian Veterinary Institute.
Contacts....
Turid Vikøren (Wildlife Health) turid.vikoren@vetinst.no
Kjell Handeland (Wildlife Health) kjell.handeland@vetinst.no
Sylvie Benestad (Prions Diseases) sylvie.benestad@vetinst.no
Jorun Jarp, Head of Dep. of Health Surveillance jorun.jarp@vetinst.no Mobile: 90056216.
Asle Haukaas, Communication Director asle.haukaas@vetinst.no Mobile: 92080877.
http://www.vetinst.no/eng/Highlights/The-first-detection-of-Chronic-Wasting-Disease-CWD-in-Europe
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI, 2016) has reported a case of prion
disease Cervid Spongiform Encephalopathy detected in free ranging wild reindeer
(Rangifer tarandus tarandus)
Saturday, April 9, 2016
The Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI, 2016) has reported a case of prion
disease Cervid Spongiform Encephalopathy detected in free ranging wild reindeer
(Rangifer tarandus tarandus)
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-norwegian-veterinary-institute-nvi.html
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Atypical H-TYPE BSE Case Confirmed in Norway
Monday, April 11, 2016
DECLARATION OF EXTRAORDINARY EMERGENCY DUE TO A FOREIGN ANIMAL DISEASE
TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY TSE PRION CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD IN
THE UNITED STATES AND NORTH AMERICA
Thursday, April 07, 2016
What is the risk of chronic wasting disease being introduced into Great
Britain? An updated Qualitative Risk Assessment March 2016
Sheep and cattle may be exposed to CWD via common grazing areas with
affected deer but so far, appear to be poorly susceptible to mule deer CWD
(Sigurdson, 2008).
***In contrast, cattle are highly susceptible to white-tailed deer CWD and
mule deer CWD in experimental conditions but no natural CWD infections in cattle
have been reported (Sigurdson, 2008; Hamir et al., 2006). It is not known how
susceptible humans are to CWD but given that the prion can be present in muscle,
it is likely that humans have been exposed to the agent via consumption of
venison (Sigurdson, 2008). Initial experimental research, however, suggests that
human susceptibility to CWD is low and there may be a robust species barrier for
CWD transmission to humans (Sigurdson, 2008). It is apparent, though, that CWD
is affecting wild and farmed cervid populations in endemic areas with some deer
populations decreasing as a result.
snip...
For the purpose of the qualitative risk assessment developed here it is
necessary to estimate the probability that a 30-ml bottle of lure contains urine
from an infected deer. This requires an estimate of the proportion of deer herds
in the USA which are infected with CWD together with the within herd
prevalence.
The distribution map of CWD in US shows it is present mainly in central
states (Figure 1). However, Virginia in the east of the country has recorded
seven recent cases of CWD (Anon 2015a). Some US manufacturers claim to take
steps to prevent urine being taken from infected animals eg by sourcing from
farms where the deer are randomly tested for CWD (Anon 2015a). However, if
disease is already present and testing is not carried out regularly, captive
populations are not necessarily disease free (Strausser 2014). Urine-based deer
lures have been known to be collected from domestic white-tailed deer herds and
therefore there is a recognised risk. This is reflected by 6 US States which
have
14
banned the use of natural deer urine for lures, as the deer urine may be
sourced from CWD-endemic areas in the USA as well as from areas free of CWD. For
example, the US State of Virginia is banning the use of urine-based deer lures
on July 2015 and Vermont from 2016 due to the risk of spread of CWD. Alaska
banned their use in 2012 (Anon 2015a). Pennsylvania Game Commission has banned
urine-based deer lures and acknowledged that there is no way to detect their use
(Strausser 2014). On the basis of unpublished data (J. Manson, Pers. Comm.) it
appears that up to 50% of deer herds can be infected with 80-90% of animals
infected within some herds.
*** It is therefore assumed that probability that a 30-ml bottle of deer
urine lure imported from the USA is sources from an infected deer is
medium.
SNIP...
In the USA, under the Food and Drug Administration’s BSE Feed Regulation
(21 CFR 589.2000) most material (exceptions include milk, tallow, and gelatin)
from deer and elk is prohibited for use in feed for ruminant animals. With
regards to feed for non-ruminant animals, under FDA law, CWD positive deer may
not be used for any animal feed or feed ingredients. ***For elk and deer
considered at high risk for CWD, the FDA recommends that these animals do not
enter the animal feed system. ***However, this recommendation is guidance and
not a requirement by law.
***Animals considered at high risk for CWD include:
***1) animals from areas declared to be endemic for CWD and/or to be CWD
eradication zones and
***2) deer and elk that at some time during the 60-month period prior to
slaughter were in a captive herd that contained a CWD-positive animal.
***Therefore, in the USA, materials from cervids other than CWD positive
animals may be used in animal feed and feed ingredients for non-ruminants. The
amount of animal PAP that is of deer and/or elk origin imported from the USA to
GB cannot be determined, however, as it is not specified in TRACES. It may
constitute a small percentage of the very low tonnage of non-fish origin
processed animal proteins that were imported from US into GB.
*** Overall, therefore, it is considered there is a greater than negligible
risk that (non-ruminant) animal feed and pet food containing deer and/or elk
protein is imported into GB. There is uncertainty associated with this estimate
given the lack of data on the amount of deer and/or elk protein possibly being
imported in these products.
SNIP...
Summary and MORE HERE ;
What is the risk of chronic wasting disease being introduced into Great
Britain? An updated Qualitative Risk Assessment March 2016
Sunday, March 20, 2016
***Docket No. FDA-2003-D-0432 (formerly 03D-0186) Use of Material from Deer
and Elk in Animal Feed Singeltary Submission ***UPDATED MARCH 2016***
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Docket No. FDA-2016-N-0321 Risk Assessment of Foodborne Illness Associated
with Pathogens from Produce Grown in Fields Amended with Untreated Biological
Soil Amendments of Animal Origin; Request for Comments, Scientific Data, and
Information Singeltary Submission
Friday, April 08, 2016
Arkansas AGFC Chronic Wasting Disease CWD TSE Prion Confirms 23 Additional
Cases Total At 79 To Date
Friday, April 01, 2016
ARKANSAS CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD TSE PRION CASES EXPLODE BY 27 NEW
CASES WITH 50 CASES TOTAL TO DATE
TEXAS TAHC BREAKS IT'S SILENCE WITH TWO MORE CASES CWD CAPTIVE DEER
BRINGING TOTAL TO 10 CAPTIVES REPORTED TO DATE
April 1, 2016
New CWD Cases Discovered at Captive Deer Breeding Facilities
AUSTIN – Two new cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Texas captive
deer, including the first confirmed from a live test tonsillar biopsy sample,
have been validated. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and Texas
Animal Health Commission (TAHC) are conducting an epidemiological investigation
into these new cases.
One case involves a 3 1/2-year-old captive raised white-tailed doe that was
born and raised on-site and died on-site of natural causes at a deer breeding
facility in Medina County where the disease had not previously been found. Test
samples were submitted in compliance with TAHC herd plan requirements.
The live test finding is from a 2 ½-year-old captive white-tailed buck in
the Uvalde- Medina County deer breeding facility that was the source of a CWD
positive white-tailed buck harvested by a hunter from a release site on the same
ranch.
With these new confirmations, 10 white-tailed deer in or originating from
deer breeding facilities have been confirmed positive for CWD in the state since
the original detection in June 2015.
Tissue samples revealed the presence of CWD prions during testing at the
Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL) in College
Station. The samples were submitted to the National Veterinary Services
Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, which validated the suspect findings Friday
evening.
The disease was first recognized in 1967 in captive mule deer in Colorado.
CWD has also been documented in captive and/or free-ranging deer in 24 states
and 2 Canadian provinces. In Texas, the disease was first discovered in 2012 in
free-ranging mule deer along a remote area of the Hueco Mountains near the
Texas-New Mexico border, and last summer was detected in two, separate captive
white-tailed deer breeding facilities in Medina and Lavaca counties.
CWD among cervids is a progressive, fatal disease that commonly results in
altered behavior as a result of microscopic changes made to the brain of
affected animals. An animal may carry the disease for years without outward
indication, but in the latter stages, signs may include listlessness, lowering
of the head, weight loss, repetitive walking in set patterns and a lack of
responsiveness. To date there is no evidence that CWD poses a risk to humans or
non-cervids. However, as a precaution, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
the World Health Organization recommend not to consume meat from infected
animals.
More information on CWD can be found on TPWD’s website, http://www.tpwd.texas.gov/CWD or at the
Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance website, http://www.cwd-info.org.
More information about the TAHC CWD program may be found at http://www.tahc.state.tx.us/animal_health/cwd/cwd.html
###
>>>One case involves a 3 1/2-year-old captive raised white-tailed
doe that was born and raised on-site and died on-site of natural causes at a
deer breeding facility in Medina County where the disease had not previously
been found. <<<
which came first, the chicken or the egg. that would be like you dying from
CJD or Asbestosis, yet your death certificate says congestive heart failure for
cause of death. you must then get the death certificate changed to read the
actual cause of death. ...
TEXAS CWD TESTING TOTAL FIGURES ??? anyone’s guess to date. TAHC et al
should take up Arkansas reporting of test results to the public and open
discussion. ...
Friday, February 26, 2016
TEXAS Hartley County Mule Deer Tests Positive for Chronic Wasting Disease
CWD TSE Prion
Friday, February 05, 2016
TEXAS NEW CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD CASE DISCOVERD AT CAPTIVE DEER
RELEASE SITE
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Chronic Wasting Disease CWD TSE Prion Roundup USA April 1, 2016
Friday, February 05, 2016
Report of the Committee on Wildlife Diseases FY2015 CWD TSE PRION
Detections in Farmed Cervids and Wild
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health; Meeting [Docket No.
APHIS-2016-0007] Singeltary Submission
Friday, March 18, 2016 CFSAN
Constituent Update: FDA Announces Final Rule on Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy BSE MAD COW TSE PRION Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition - Constituent Update
Monday, March 28, 2016
National Scrapie Eradication Program February 2016 Monthly Report
*** Docket No. APHIS-2007-0127 Scrapie in Sheep and Goats Terry Singeltary
Sr. Submission ***
Monday, November 16, 2015
*** Docket No. APHIS-2007-0127 Scrapie in Sheep and Goats Terry Singeltary
Sr. Submission ***
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
RANCHO He did not know that they were placing healthy cow heads next to
suspect carcasses BSE TSE Prion
O.05: Transmission of prions to primates after extended silent incubation
periods: Implications for BSE and scrapie risk assessment in human populations
Emmanuel Comoy, Jacqueline Mikol, Valerie Durand, Sophie Luccantoni,
Evelyne Correia, Nathalie Lescoutra, Capucine Dehen, and Jean-Philippe Deslys
Atomic Energy Commission; Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
Prion diseases (PD) are the unique neurodegenerative proteinopathies
reputed to be transmissible under field conditions since decades. The
transmission of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) to humans evidenced that
an animal PD might be zoonotic under appropriate conditions. Contrarily, in the
absence of obvious (epidemiological or experimental) elements supporting a
transmission or genetic predispositions, PD, like the other proteinopathies, are
reputed to occur spontaneously (atpical animal prion strains, sporadic CJD
summing 80% of human prion cases). Non-human primate models provided the first
evidences supporting the transmissibiity of human prion strains and the zoonotic
potential of BSE. Among them, cynomolgus macaques brought major information for
BSE risk assessment for human health (Chen, 2014), according to their
phylogenetic proximity to humans and extended lifetime. We used this model to
assess the zoonotic potential of other animal PD from bovine, ovine and cervid
origins even after very long silent incubation periods.
*** We recently observed the direct transmission of a natural classical
scrapie isolate to macaque after a 10-year silent incubation period,
***with features similar to some reported for human cases of sporadic CJD,
albeit requiring fourfold long incubation than BSE. Scrapie, as recently evoked
in humanized mice (Cassard, 2014),
***is the third potentially zoonotic PD (with BSE and L-type BSE),
***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases.
We will present an updated panorama of our different transmission studies
and discuss the implications of such extended incubation periods on risk
assessment of animal PD for human health.
===============
***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases***
===============
Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF
TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES
*** Title: Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended
silent incubation period
Authors
item Comoy, Emmanuel - item Mikol, Jacqueline - item Luccantoni-Freire,
Sophie - item Correia, Evelyne - item Lescoutra-Etchegaray, Nathalie - item
Durand, Valérie - item Dehen, Capucine - item Andreoletti, Olivier - item
Casalone, Cristina - item Richt, Juergen item Greenlee, Justin item Baron,
Thierry - item Benestad, Sylvie - item Hills, Bob - item Brown, Paul - item
Deslys, Jean-Philippe -
Submitted to: Scientific Reports Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: May 28, 2015 Publication Date: June 30, 2015
Citation: Comoy, E.E., Mikol, J., Luccantoni-Freire, S., Correia, E.,
Lescoutra-Etchegaray, N., Durand, V., Dehen, C., Andreoletti, O., Casalone, C.,
Richt, J.A., Greenlee, J.J., Baron, T., Benestad, S., Brown, P., Deslys, J.
2015. Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent
incubation period. Scientific Reports. 5:11573.
Interpretive Summary: The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (also
called prion diseases) are fatal neurodegenerative diseases that affect animals
and humans. The agent of prion diseases is a misfolded form of the prion protein
that is resistant to breakdown by the host cells. Since all mammals express
prion protein on the surface of various cells such as neurons, all mammals are,
in theory, capable of replicating prion diseases. One example of a prion
disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE; also called mad cow disease),
has been shown to infect cattle, sheep, exotic undulates, cats, non-human
primates, and humans when the new host is exposed to feeds or foods contaminated
with the disease agent. The purpose of this study was to test whether non-human
primates (cynomologous macaque) are susceptible to the agent of sheep scrapie.
***After an incubation period of approximately 10 years a macaque developed
progressive clinical signs suggestive of neurologic disease.
***Upon postmortem examination and microscopic examination of tissues,
there was a widespread distribution of lesions consistent with a transmissible
spongiform encephalopathy.
***This information will have a scientific impact since it is the first
study that demonstrates the transmission of scrapie to a non-human primate with
a close genetic relationship to humans.
***This information is especially useful to regulatory officials and those
involved with risk assessment of the potential transmission of animal prion
diseases to humans.
Technical Abstract:
Classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (c-BSE) is an animal prion
disease that also causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Over the
past decades, c-BSE's zoonotic potential has been the driving force in
establishing extensive protective measures for animal and human health.
***In complement to the recent demonstration that humanized mice are
susceptible to scrapie, we report here the first observation of direct
transmission of a natural classical scrapie isolate to a macaque after a 10-year
incubation period.
***Neuropathologic examination revealed all of the features of a prion
disease: spongiform change, neuronal loss, and accumulation of PrPres throughout
the CNS.
***This observation strengthens the questioning of the harmlessness of
scrapie to humans, at a time when protective measures for human and animal
health are being dismantled and reduced as c-BSE is considered controlled and
being eradicated.
***Our results underscore the importance of precautionary and protective
measures and the necessity for long-term experimental transmission studies to
assess the zoonotic potential of other animal prion strains.
***Our study demonstrates susceptibility of adult cattle to oral
transmission of classical BSE. ***
***our findings suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to
sheep and human. ***
P.86: Estimating the risk of transmission of BSE and scrapie to ruminants
and humans by protein misfolding cyclic amplification
Morikazu Imamura, Naoko Tabeta, Yoshifumi Iwamaru, and Yuichi Murayama
National Institute of Animal Health; Tsukuba, Japan
To assess the risk of the transmission of ruminant prions to ruminants and
humans at the molecular level, we investigated the ability of abnormal prion
protein (PrPSc) of typical and atypical BSEs (L-type and H-type) and typical
scrapie to convert normal prion protein (PrPC) from bovine, ovine, and human to
proteinase K-resistant PrPSc-like form (PrPres) using serial protein misfolding
cyclic amplification (PMCA).
Six rounds of serial PMCA was performed using 10% brain homogenates from
transgenic mice expressing bovine, ovine or human PrPC in combination with PrPSc
seed from typical and atypical BSE- or typical scrapie-infected brain
homogenates from native host species. In the conventional PMCA, the conversion
of PrPC to PrPres was observed only when the species of PrPC source and PrPSc
seed matched. However, in the PMCA with supplements (digitonin, synthetic polyA
and heparin), both bovine and ovine PrPC were converted by PrPSc from all tested
prion strains. On the other hand, human PrPC was converted by PrPSc from typical
and H-type BSE in this PMCA condition.
Although these results were not compatible with the previous reports
describing the lack of transmissibility of H-type BSE to ovine and human
transgenic mice,
***our findings suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to
sheep and human.
Bioassay will be required to determine whether the PMCA products are
infectious to these animals.
================
==========================================
PRION 2015 CONFERENCE FT. COLLINS CWD RISK FACTORS TO HUMANS
*** LATE-BREAKING ABSTRACTS PRION 2015 CONFERENCE ***
O18
Zoonotic Potential of CWD Prions
Liuting Qing1, Ignazio Cali1,2, Jue Yuan1, Shenghai Huang3, Diane Kofskey1,
Pierluigi Gambetti1, Wenquan Zou1, Qingzhong Kong1 1Case Western Reserve
University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 2Second University of Naples, Naples, Italy,
3Encore Health Resources, Houston, Texas, USA
*** These results indicate that the CWD prion has the potential to infect
human CNS and peripheral lymphoid tissues and that there might be asymptomatic
human carriers of CWD infection.
==================
***These results indicate that the CWD prion has the potential to infect
human CNS and peripheral lymphoid tissues and that there might be asymptomatic
human carriers of CWD infection.***
==================
P.105: RT-QuIC models trans-species prion transmission
Kristen Davenport, Davin Henderson, Candace Mathiason, and Edward Hoover
Prion Research Center; Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO USA
Conversely, FSE maintained sufficient BSE characteristics to more
efficiently convert bovine rPrP than feline rPrP. Additionally, human rPrP was
competent for conversion by CWD and fCWD.
***This insinuates that, at the level of protein:protein interactions, the
barrier preventing transmission of CWD to humans is less robust than previously
estimated.
================
***This insinuates that, at the level of protein:protein interactions, the
barrier preventing transmission of CWD to humans is less robust than previously
estimated.***
================
*** PRICE OF CWD TSE PRION POKER GOES UP 2014 ***
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy TSE PRION update January 2, 2014
*** chronic wasting disease, there was no absolute barrier to conversion of
the human prion protein.
*** Furthermore, the form of human PrPres produced in this in vitro assay
when seeded with CWD, resembles that found in the most common human prion
disease, namely sCJD of the MM1 subtype.
*** These results would seem to suggest that CWD does indeed have zoonotic
potential, at least as judged by the compatibility of CWD prions and their human
PrPC target. Furthermore, extrapolation from this simple in vitro assay suggests
that if zoonotic CWD occurred, it would most likely effect those of the PRNP
codon 129-MM genotype and that the PrPres type would be similar to that found in
the most common subtype of sCJD (MM1).***
*** The potential impact of prion diseases on human health was greatly
magnified by the recognition that interspecies transfer of BSE to humans by beef
ingestion resulted in vCJD. While changes in animal feed constituents and
slaughter practices appear to have curtailed vCJD, there is concern that CWD of
free-ranging deer and elk in the U.S. might also cross the species barrier.
Thus, consuming venison could be a source of human prion disease. Whether BSE
and CWD represent interspecies scrapie transfer or are newly arisen prion
diseases is unknown. Therefore, the possibility of transmission of prion disease
through other food animals cannot be ruled out. There is evidence that vCJD can
be transmitted through blood transfusion. There is likely a pool of unknown size
of asymptomatic individuals infected with vCJD, and there may be asymptomatic
individuals infected with the CWD equivalent. These circumstances represent a
potential threat to blood, blood products, and plasma supplies.
now, let’s see what the authors said about this casual link, personal
communications years ago. see where it is stated NO STRONG evidence. so, does
this mean there IS casual evidence ???? “Our conclusion stating that we found no
strong evidence of CWD transmission to humans”
From: TSS (216-119-163-189.ipset45.wt.net)
Subject: CWD aka MAD DEER/ELK TO HUMANS ???
Date: September 30, 2002 at 7:06 am PST
From: "Belay, Ermias"
To: Cc: "Race, Richard (NIH)" ; ; "Belay, Ermias"
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 9:22 AM
Subject: RE: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG HUNTERS
Dear Sir/Madam,
In the Archives of Neurology you quoted (the abstract of which was attached
to your email), we did not say CWD in humans will present like variant CJD. That
assumption would be wrong. I encourage you to read the whole article and call me
if you have questions or need more clarification (phone: 404-639-3091). Also, we
do not claim that "no-one has ever been infected with prion disease from eating
venison." Our conclusion stating that we found no strong evidence of CWD
transmission to humans in the article you quoted or in any other forum is
limited to the patients we investigated.
Ermias Belay, M.D. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
-----Original Message-----
From: Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 10:15 AM
To: rr26k@nih.gov; rrace@niaid.nih.gov; ebb8@CDC.GOV
Subject: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG HUNTERS
Sunday, November 10, 2002 6:26 PM ......snip........end..............TSS
Thursday, April 03, 2008
A prion disease of cervids: Chronic wasting disease 2008 1: Vet Res. 2008
Apr 3;39(4):41 A prion disease of cervids: Chronic wasting disease Sigurdson CJ.
snip...
*** twenty-seven CJD patients who regularly consumed venison were reported
to the Surveillance Center***,
snip... full text ;
CJD is so rare in people under age 30, one case in a billion (leaving out
medical mishaps), that four cases under 30 is "very high," says Colorado
neurologist Bosque. "Then, if you add these other two from Wisconsin [cases in
the newspaper], six cases of CJD in people associated with venison is very, very
high." Only now, with Mary Riley, there are at least seven, and possibly eight,
with Steve, her dining companion. "It's not critical mass that matters,"
however, Belay says. "One case would do it for me." The chance that two people
who know each other would both contact CJD, like the two Wisconsin sportsmen, is
so unlikely, experts say, it would happen only once in 140 years.
Given the incubation period for TSEs in humans, it may require another
generation to write the final chapter on CWD in Wisconsin. "Does chronic wasting
disease pass into humans? We'll be able to answer that in 2022," says Race.
Meanwhile, the state has become part of an immense experiment.
I urge everyone to watch this video closely...terry
*** you can see video here and interview with Jeff's Mom, and scientist
telling you to test everything and potential risk factors for humans ***
Envt.07:
Pathological Prion Protein (PrPTSE) in Skeletal Muscles of Farmed and Free
Ranging White-Tailed Deer Infected with Chronic Wasting Disease
***The presence and seeding activity of PrPTSE in skeletal muscle from
CWD-infected cervids suggests prevention of such tissue in the human diet as a
precautionary measure for food safety, pending on further clarification of
whether CWD may be transmissible to humans.
Prions in Skeletal Muscles of Deer with Chronic Wasting Disease Rachel C.
Angers1,*, Shawn R. Browning1,*,†, Tanya S. Seward2, Christina J. Sigurdson4,‡,
Michael W. Miller5, Edward A. Hoover4, Glenn C. Telling1,2,3,§ snip...
Abstract The emergence of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk in
an increasingly wide geographic area, as well as the interspecies transmission
of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans in the form of variant Creutzfeldt
Jakob disease, have raised concerns about the zoonotic potential of CWD. Because
meat consumption is the most likely means of exposure, it is important to
determine whether skeletal muscle of diseased cervids contains prion
infectivity. Here bioassays in transgenic mice expressing cervid prion protein
revealed the presence of infectious prions in skeletal muscles of CWD-infected
deer, demonstrating that humans consuming or handling meat from CWD-infected
deer are at risk to prion exposure.
***********CJD REPORT 1994 increased risk for consumption of veal and
venison and lamb***********
CREUTZFELDT JAKOB DISEASE SURVEILLANCE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM THIRD ANNUAL
REPORT AUGUST 1994
Consumption of venison and veal was much less widespread among both cases
and controls. For both of these meats there was evidence of a trend with
increasing frequency of consumption being associated with increasing risk of
CJD. (not nvCJD, but sporadic CJD...tss)
These associations were largely unchanged when attention was restricted to
pairs with data obtained from relatives. ...
Table 9 presents the results of an analysis of these data.
There is STRONG evidence of an association between ‘’regular’’ veal eating
and risk of CJD (p = .0.01).
Individuals reported to eat veal on average at least once a year appear to
be at 13 TIMES THE RISK of individuals who have never eaten veal.
There is, however, a very wide confidence interval around this estimate.
There is no strong evidence that eating veal less than once per year is
associated with increased risk of CJD (p = 0.51).
The association between venison eating and risk of CJD shows similar
pattern, with regular venison eating associated with a 9 FOLD INCREASE IN RISK
OF CJD (p = 0.04).
There is some evidence that risk of CJD INCREASES WITH INCREASING FREQUENCY
OF LAMB EATING (p = 0.02).
The evidence for such an association between beef eating and CJD is weaker
(p = 0.14). When only controls for whom a relative was interviewed are included,
this evidence becomes a little STRONGER (p = 0.08).
snip...
It was found that when veal was included in the model with another
exposure, the association between veal and CJD remained statistically
significant (p = < 0.05 for all exposures), while the other exposures
ceased to be statistically significant (p = > 0.05).
snip...
In conclusion, an analysis of dietary histories revealed statistical
associations between various meats/animal products and INCREASED RISK OF CJD.
When some account was taken of possible confounding, the association between
VEAL EATING AND RISK OF CJD EMERGED AS THE STRONGEST OF THESE ASSOCIATIONS
STATISTICALLY. ...
snip...
In the study in the USA, a range of foodstuffs were associated with an
increased risk of CJD, including liver consumption which was associated with an
apparent SIX-FOLD INCREASE IN THE RISK OF CJD. By comparing the data from 3
studies in relation to this particular dietary factor, the risk of liver
consumption became non-significant with an odds ratio of 1.2 (PERSONAL
COMMUNICATION, PROFESSOR A. HOFMAN. ERASMUS UNIVERSITY, ROTTERDAM). (???...TSS)
snip...see full report ;
CJD9/10022
October 1994
Mr R.N. Elmhirst Chairman British Deer Farmers Association Holly Lodge
Spencers Lane BerksWell Coventry CV7 7BZ
Dear Mr Elmhirst,
CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE (CJD) SURVEILLANCE UNIT REPORT
Thank you for your recent letter concerning the publication of the third
annual report from the CJD Surveillance Unit. I am sorry that you are
dissatisfied with the way in which this report was published.
The Surveillance Unit is a completely independant outside body and the
Department of Health is committed to publishing their reports as soon as they
become available. In the circumstances it is not the practice to circulate the
report for comment since the findings of the report would not be amended. In
future we can ensure that the British Deer Farmers Association receives a copy
of the report in advance of publication.
The Chief Medical Officer has undertaken to keep the public fully informed
of the results of any research in respect of CJD. This report was entirely the
work of the unit and was produced completely independantly of the the
Department.
The statistical results reqarding the consumption of venison was put into
perspective in the body of the report and was not mentioned at all in the press
release. Media attention regarding this report was low key but gave a realistic
presentation of the statistical findings of the Unit. This approach to
publication was successful in that consumption of venison was highlighted only
once by the media ie. in the News at one television proqramme.
I believe that a further statement about the report, or indeed statistical
links between CJD and consumption of venison, would increase, and quite possibly
give damaging credence, to the whole issue. From the low key media reports of
which I am aware it seems unlikely that venison consumption will suffer
adversely, if at all.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030511010117/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/yb/1994/10/00003001.pdf
*** These results would seem to suggest that CWD does indeed have zoonotic
potential, at least as judged by the compatibility of CWD prions and their human
PrPC target. Furthermore, extrapolation from this simple in vitro assay suggests
that if zoonotic CWD occurred, it would most likely effect those of the PRNP
codon 129-MM genotype and that the PrPres type would be similar to that found in
the most common subtype of sCJD (MM1).***
PRION 2015 CONFERENCE USA
***Our study demonstrates susceptibility of adult cattle to oral
transmission of classical BSE. ***
***our findings suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to
sheep and human. ***
P.86: Estimating the risk of transmission of BSE and scrapie to ruminants
and humans by protein misfolding cyclic amplification
Morikazu Imamura, Naoko Tabeta, Yoshifumi Iwamaru, and Yuichi Murayama
National Institute of Animal Health; Tsukuba, Japan
To assess the risk of the transmission of ruminant prions to ruminants and
humans at the molecular level, we investigated the ability of abnormal prion
protein (PrPSc) of typical and atypical BSEs (L-type and H-type) and typical
scrapie to convert normal prion protein (PrPC) from bovine, ovine, and human to
proteinase K-resistant PrPSc-like form (PrPres) using serial protein misfolding
cyclic amplification (PMCA).
Six rounds of serial PMCA was performed using 10% brain homogenates from
transgenic mice expressing bovine, ovine or human PrPC in combination with PrPSc
seed from typical and atypical BSE- or typical scrapie-infected brain
homogenates from native host species. In the conventional PMCA, the conversion
of PrPC to PrPres was observed only when the species of PrPC source and PrPSc
seed matched. However, in the PMCA with supplements (digitonin, synthetic polyA
and heparin), both bovine and ovine PrPC were converted by PrPSc from all tested
prion strains. On the other hand, human PrPC was converted by PrPSc from typical
and H-type BSE in this PMCA condition.
Although these results were not compatible with the previous reports
describing the lack of transmissibility of H-type BSE to ovine and human
transgenic mice,
***our findings suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to
sheep and human.
Bioassay will be required to determine whether the PMCA products are
infectious to these animals.
================
why do we not want to do TSE transmission studies on chimpanzees $
5. A positive result from a chimpanzee challenged severly would likely create alarm in some circles even if the result could not be interpreted for man. I have a view that all these agents could be transmitted provided a large enough dose by appropriate routes was given and the animals kept long enough. Until the mechanisms of the species barrier are more clearly understood it might be best to retain that hypothesis.
snip...
R. BRADLEY
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080102222950/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/yb/1990/09/23001001.pdf
”The occurrence of CWD must be viewed against the contest of the locations in which it occurred. It was an incidental and unwelcome complication of the respective wildlife research programmes. Despite it’s subsequent recognition as a new disease of cervids, therefore justifying direct investigation, no specific research funding was forthcoming. The USDA veiwed it as a wildlife problem and consequently not their province!” page 26.
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080102193705/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m11b/tab01.pdf
In Confidence - Perceptions of unconventional slow virus diseases of animals in the USA - APRIL-MAY 1989 - G A H Wells
3. Prof. A. Robertson gave a brief account of BSE. The US approach was to accord it a very low profile indeed. Dr. A Thiermann showed the picture in the ''Independent'' with cattle being incinerated and thought this was a fanatical incident to be avoided in the US at all costs. ...
http://web.archive.org/web/20060307063531/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m11b/tab01.pdf
MAD COW DISEASE HAS BEEN IN THE USA FOR DECADES, AND I BELIEVE IT WAS IN THE USA FIRST, PLEASE SEE ;
Evidence That Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy Results from Feeding Infected Cattle Over the next 8-10 weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME.
snip...
The rancher was a ''dead stock'' feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle...
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20090505194948/http://bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m09/tab05.pdf
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20090505194948/http://bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m09a/tab01.pdf
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20090505194948/http://bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/yb/1987/06/10004001.pdf
PL1
Using in vitro prion replication for high sensitive detection of prions and prionlike proteins and for understanding mechanisms of transmission.
Claudio Soto
Mitchell Center for Alzheimer's diseases and related Brain disorders, Department of Neurology, University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
Prion and prion-like proteins are misfolded protein aggregates with the ability to selfpropagate to spread disease between cells, organs and in some cases across individuals. I n T r a n s m i s s i b l e s p o n g i f o r m encephalopathies (TSEs), prions are mostly composed by a misfolded form of the prion protein (PrPSc), which propagates by transmitting its misfolding to the normal prion protein (PrPC). The availability of a procedure to replicate prions in the laboratory may be important to study the mechanism of prion and prion-like spreading and to develop high sensitive detection of small quantities of misfolded proteins in biological fluids, tissues and environmental samples. Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA) is a simple, fast and efficient methodology to mimic prion replication in the test tube. PMCA is a platform technology that may enable amplification of any prion-like misfolded protein aggregating through a seeding/nucleation process. In TSEs, PMCA is able to detect the equivalent of one single molecule of infectious PrPSc and propagate prions that maintain high infectivity, strain properties and species specificity. Using PMCA we have been able to detect PrPSc in blood and urine of experimentally infected animals and humans affected by vCJD with high sensitivity and specificity. Recently, we have expanded the principles of PMCA to amplify amyloid-beta (Aβ) and alphasynuclein (α-syn) aggregates implicated in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, respectively. Experiments are ongoing to study the utility of this technology to detect Aβ and α-syn aggregates in samples of CSF and blood from patients affected by these diseases.
=========================
***Recently, we have been using PMCA to study the role of environmental prion contamination on the horizontal spreading of TSEs. These experiments have focused on the study of the interaction of prions with plants and environmentally relevant surfaces. Our results show that plants (both leaves and roots) bind tightly to prions present in brain extracts and excreta (urine and feces) and retain even small quantities of PrPSc for long periods of time. Strikingly, ingestion of prioncontaminated leaves and roots produced disease with a 100% attack rate and an incubation period not substantially longer than feeding animals directly with scrapie brain homogenate. Furthermore, plants can uptake prions from contaminated soil and transport them to different parts of the plant tissue (stem and leaves). Similarly, prions bind tightly to a variety of environmentally relevant surfaces, including stones, wood, metals, plastic, glass, cement, etc. Prion contaminated surfaces efficiently transmit prion disease when these materials were directly injected into the brain of animals and strikingly when the contaminated surfaces were just placed in the animal cage. These findings demonstrate that environmental materials can efficiently bind infectious prions and act as carriers of infectivity, suggesting that they may play an important role in the horizontal transmission of the disease.
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Since its invention 13 years ago, PMCA has helped to answer fundamental questions of prion propagation and has broad applications in research areas including the food industry, blood bank safety and human and veterinary disease diagnosis.
https://prion2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/programguide1.pdf
see ;
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.4161/pri.28467
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058630
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3567181/pdf/ppat.1003113.pdf
http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150210/srep08358/full/srep08358.html?WT.ec_id=SREP-639-20150217
http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247(15)00437-4
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission
Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission
Timm Konold1*, Stephen A. C. Hawkins2, Lisa C. Thurston3, Ben C. Maddison4, Kevin C. Gough5, Anthony Duarte1 and Hugh A. Simmons1
1 Animal Sciences Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency Weybridge, Addlestone, UK, 2 Pathology Department, Animal and Plant Health Agency Weybridge, Addlestone, UK, 3 Surveillance and Laboratory Services, Animal and Plant Health Agency Penrith, Penrith, UK, 4 ADAS UK, School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, UK, 5 School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, UK
Classical scrapie is an environmentally transmissible prion disease of sheep and goats. Prions can persist and remain potentially infectious in the environment for many years and thus pose a risk of infecting animals after re-stocking. In vitro studies using serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) have suggested that objects on a scrapie affected sheep farm could contribute to disease transmission. This in vivo study aimed to determine the role of field furniture (water troughs, feeding troughs, fencing, and other objects that sheep may rub against) used by a scrapie-infected sheep flock as a vector for disease transmission to scrapie-free lambs with the prion protein genotype VRQ/VRQ, which is associated with high susceptibility to classical scrapie. When the field furniture was placed in clean accommodation, sheep became infected when exposed to either a water trough (four out of five) or to objects used for rubbing (four out of seven). This field furniture had been used by the scrapie-infected flock 8 weeks earlier and had previously been shown to harbor scrapie prions by sPMCA. Sheep also became infected (20 out of 23) through exposure to contaminated field furniture placed within pasture not used by scrapie-infected sheep for 40 months, even though swabs from this furniture tested negative by PMCA. This infection rate decreased (1 out of 12) on the same paddock after replacement with clean field furniture. Twelve grazing sheep exposed to field furniture not in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for 18 months remained scrapie free. The findings of this study highlight the role of field furniture used by scrapie-infected sheep to act as a reservoir for disease re-introduction although infectivity declines considerably if the field furniture has not been in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for several months. PMCA may not be as sensitive as VRQ/VRQ sheep to test for environmental contamination.
snip...
Discussion
Classical scrapie is an environmentally transmissible disease because it has been reported in naïve, supposedly previously unexposed sheep placed in pastures formerly occupied by scrapie-infected sheep (4, 19, 20). Although the vector for disease transmission is not known, soil is likely to be an important reservoir for prions (2) where – based on studies in rodents – prions can adhere to minerals as a biologically active form (21) and remain infectious for more than 2 years (22). Similarly, chronic wasting disease (CWD) has re-occurred in mule deer housed in paddocks used by infected deer 2 years earlier, which was assumed to be through foraging and soil consumption (23).
Our study suggested that the risk of acquiring scrapie infection was greater through exposure to contaminated wooden, plastic, and metal surfaces via water or food troughs, fencing, and hurdles than through grazing. Drinking from a water trough used by the scrapie flock was sufficient to cause infection in sheep in a clean building. Exposure to fences and other objects used for rubbing also led to infection, which supported the hypothesis that skin may be a vector for disease transmission (9). The risk of these objects to cause infection was further demonstrated when 87% of 23 sheep presented with PrPSc in lymphoid tissue after grazing on one of the paddocks, which contained metal hurdles, a metal lamb creep and a water trough in contact with the scrapie flock up to 8 weeks earlier, whereas no infection had been demonstrated previously in sheep grazing on this paddock, when equipped with new fencing and field furniture. When the contaminated furniture and fencing were removed, the infection rate dropped significantly to 8% of 12 sheep, with soil of the paddock as the most likely source of infection caused by shedding of prions from the scrapie-infected sheep in this paddock up to a week earlier.
This study also indicated that the level of contamination of field furniture sufficient to cause infection was dependent on two factors: stage of incubation period and time of last use by scrapie-infected sheep. Drinking from a water trough that had been used by scrapie sheep in the predominantly pre-clinical phase did not appear to cause infection, whereas infection was shown in sheep drinking from the water trough used by scrapie sheep in the later stage of the disease. It is possible that contamination occurred through shedding of prions in saliva, which may have contaminated the surface of the water trough and subsequently the water when it was refilled. Contamination appeared to be sufficient to cause infection only if the trough was in contact with sheep that included clinical cases. Indeed, there is an increased risk of bodily fluid infectivity with disease progression in scrapie (24) and CWD (25) based on PrPSc detection by sPMCA. Although ultraviolet light and heat under natural conditions do not inactivate prions (26), furniture in contact with the scrapie flock, which was assumed to be sufficiently contaminated to cause infection, did not act as vector for disease if not used for 18 months, which suggest that the weathering process alone was sufficient to inactivate prions.
PrPSc detection by sPMCA is increasingly used as a surrogate for infectivity measurements by bioassay in sheep or mice. In this reported study, however, the levels of PrPSc present in the environment were below the limit of detection of the sPMCA method, yet were still sufficient to cause infection of in-contact animals. In the present study, the outdoor objects were removed from the infected flock 8 weeks prior to sampling and were positive by sPMCA at very low levels (2 out of 37 reactions). As this sPMCA assay also yielded 2 positive reactions out of 139 in samples from the scrapie-free farm, the sPMCA assay could not detect PrPSc on any of the objects above the background of the assay. False positive reactions with sPMCA at a low frequency associated with de novo formation of infectious prions have been reported (27, 28). This is in contrast to our previous study where we demonstrated that outdoor objects that had been in contact with the scrapie-infected flock up to 20 days prior to sampling harbored PrPSc that was detectable by sPMCA analysis [4 out of 15 reactions (12)] and was significantly more positive by the assay compared to analogous samples from the scrapie-free farm. This discrepancy could be due to the use of a different sPMCA substrate between the studies that may alter the efficiency of amplification of the environmental PrPSc. In addition, the present study had a longer timeframe between the objects being in contact with the infected flock and sampling, which may affect the levels of extractable PrPSc. Alternatively, there may be potentially patchy contamination of this furniture with PrPSc, which may have been missed by swabbing. The failure of sPMCA to detect CWD-associated PrP in saliva from clinically affected deer despite confirmation of infectivity in saliva-inoculated transgenic mice was associated with as yet unidentified inhibitors in saliva (29), and it is possible that the sensitivity of sPMCA is affected by other substances in the tested material. In addition, sampling of amplifiable PrPSc and subsequent detection by sPMCA may be more difficult from furniture exposed to weather, which is supported by the observation that PrPSc was detected by sPMCA more frequently in indoor than outdoor furniture (12). A recent experimental study has demonstrated that repeated cycles of drying and wetting of prion-contaminated soil, equivalent to what is expected under natural weathering conditions, could reduce PMCA amplification efficiency and extend the incubation period in hamsters inoculated with soil samples (30). This seems to apply also to this study even though the reduction in infectivity was more dramatic in the sPMCA assays than in the sheep model. Sheep were not kept until clinical end-point, which would have enabled us to compare incubation periods, but the lack of infection in sheep exposed to furniture that had not been in contact with scrapie sheep for a longer time period supports the hypothesis that prion degradation and subsequent loss of infectivity occurs even under natural conditions.
In conclusion, the results in the current study indicate that removal of furniture that had been in contact with scrapie-infected animals should be recommended, particularly since cleaning and decontamination may not effectively remove scrapie infectivity (31), even though infectivity declines considerably if the pasture and the field furniture have not been in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for several months. As sPMCA failed to detect PrPSc in furniture that was subjected to weathering, even though exposure led to infection in sheep, this method may not always be reliable in predicting the risk of scrapie infection through environmental contamination. These results suggest that the VRQ/VRQ sheep model may be more sensitive than sPMCA for the detection of environmentally associated scrapie, and suggest that extremely low levels of scrapie contamination are able to cause infection in susceptible sheep genotypes.
Keywords: classical scrapie, prion, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, sheep, field furniture, reservoir, serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fvets.2015.00032/full
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
*** Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission ***
http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2015/12/objects-in-contact-with-classical.html
Circulation of prions within dust on a scrapie affected farm
Kevin C Gough1, Claire A Baker2, Hugh A Simmons3, Steve A Hawkins3 and Ben C Maddison2*
Abstract
Prion diseases are fatal neurological disorders that affect humans and animals. Scrapie of sheep/goats and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) of deer/elk are contagious prion diseases where environmental reservoirs have a direct link to the transmission of disease. Using protein misfolding cyclic amplification we demonstrate that scrapie PrPSc can be detected within circulating dusts that are present on a farm that is naturally contaminated with sheep scrapie. The presence of infectious scrapie within airborne dusts may represent a possible route of infection and illustrates the difficulties that may be associated with the effective decontamination of such scrapie affected premises.
snip...
Discussion
We present biochemical data illustrating the airborne movement of scrapie containing material within a contaminated farm environment. We were able to detect scrapie PrPSc within extracts from dusts collected over a 70 day period, in the absence of any sheep activity. We were also able to detect scrapie PrPSc within dusts collected within pasture at 30 m but not at 60 m distance away from the scrapie contaminated buildings, suggesting that the chance of contamination of pasture by scrapie contaminated dusts decreases with distance from contaminated farm buildings. PrPSc amplification by sPMCA has been shown to correlate with infectivity and amplified products have been shown to be infectious [14,15]. These experiments illustrate the potential for low dose scrapie infectivity to be present within such samples. We estimate low ng levels of scrapie positive brain equivalent were deposited per m2 over 70 days, in a barn previously occupied by sheep affected with scrapie. This movement of dusts and the accumulation of low levels of scrapie infectivity within this environment may in part explain previous observations where despite stringent pen decontamination regimens healthy lambs still became scrapie infected after apparent exposure from their environment alone [16]. The presence of sPMCA seeding activity and by inference, infectious prions within dusts, and their potential for airborne dissemination is highly novel and may have implications for the spread of scrapie within infected premises. The low level circulation and accumulation of scrapie prion containing dust material within the farm environment will likely impede the efficient decontamination of such scrapie contaminated buildings unless all possible reservoirs of dust are removed. Scrapie containing dusts could possibly infect animals during feeding and drinking, and respiratory and conjunctival routes may also be involved. It has been demonstrated that scrapie can be efficiently transmitted via the nasal route in sheep [17], as is also the case for CWD in both murine models and in white tailed deer [18-20].
The sources of dust borne prions are unknown but it seems reasonable to assume that faecal, urine, skin, parturient material and saliva-derived prions may contribute to this mobile environmental reservoir of infectivity. This work highlights a possible transmission route for scrapie within the farm environment, and this is likely to be paralleled in CWD which shows strong similarities with scrapie in terms of prion dissemination and disease transmission. The data indicate that the presence of scrapie prions in dust is likely to make the control of these diseases a considerable challenge.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4397813/pdf/13567_2015_Article_176.pdf
Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES
Title: Scrapie transmits to white-tailed deer by the oral route and has a molecular profile similar to chronic wasting disease
Authors
item Greenlee, Justin item Moore, S - item Smith, Jodi - item Kunkle, Robert item West Greenlee, M -
Submitted to: American College of Veterinary Pathologists Meeting Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: August 12, 2015 Publication Date: N/A Technical Abstract: The purpose of this work was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer (WTD) to the agent of sheep scrapie and to compare the resultant PrPSc to that of the original inoculum and chronic wasting disease (CWD). We inoculated WTD by a natural route of exposure (concurrent oral and intranasal (IN); n=5) with a US scrapie isolate. All scrapie-inoculated deer had evidence of PrPSc accumulation. PrPSc was detected in lymphoid tissues at preclinical time points, and deer necropsied after 28 months post-inoculation had clinical signs, spongiform encephalopathy, and widespread distribution of PrPSc in neural and lymphoid tissues. Western blotting (WB) revealed PrPSc with 2 distinct molecular profiles. WB on cerebral cortex had a profile similar to the original scrapie inoculum, whereas WB of brainstem, cerebellum, or lymph nodes revealed PrPSc with a higher profile resembling CWD. Homogenates with the 2 distinct profiles from WTD with clinical scrapie were further passaged to mice expressing cervid prion protein and intranasally to sheep and WTD. In cervidized mice, the two inocula have distinct incubation times. Sheep inoculated intranasally with WTD derived scrapie developed disease, but only after inoculation with the inoculum that had a scrapie-like profile. The WTD study is ongoing, but deer in both inoculation groups are positive for PrPSc by rectal mucosal biopsy. In summary, this work demonstrates that WTD are susceptible to the agent of scrapie, two distinct molecular profiles of PrPSc are present in the tissues of affected deer, and inoculum of either profile readily passes to deer.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=317901
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=260467
White-tailed Deer are Susceptible to Scrapie by Natural Route of Infection
Jodi D. Smith, Justin J. Greenlee, and Robert A. Kunkle; Virus and Prion Research Unit, National Animal Disease Center, USDA-ARS
Interspecies transmission studies afford the opportunity to better understand the potential host range and origins of prion diseases. Previous experiments demonstrated that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep-derived scrapie by intracranial inoculation. The purpose of this study was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer to scrapie after a natural route of exposure. Deer (n=5) were inoculated by concurrent oral (30 ml) and intranasal (1 ml) instillation of a 10% (wt/vol) brain homogenate derived from a sheep clinically affected with scrapie. Non-inoculated deer were maintained as negative controls. All deer were observed daily for clinical signs. Deer were euthanized and necropsied when neurologic disease was evident, and tissues were examined for abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot (WB). One animal was euthanized 15 months post-inoculation (MPI) due to an injury. At that time, examination of obex and lymphoid tissues by IHC was positive, but WB of obex and colliculus were negative. Remaining deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 MPI. Tissues from these deer were positive for scrapie by IHC and WB. Tissues with PrPSc immunoreactivity included brain, tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph nodes, hemal node, Peyer’s patches, and spleen. This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by potential natural routes of inoculation. In-depth analysis of tissues will be done to determine similarities between scrapie in deer after intracranial and oral/intranasal inoculation and chronic wasting disease resulting from similar routes of inoculation.
see full text ;
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/Reports/2010/report-cwal-2010.pdf
PO-039: A comparison of scrapie and chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer
Justin Greenlee, Jodi Smith, Eric Nicholson US Dept. Agriculture; Agricultural Research Service, National Animal Disease Center; Ames, IA USA
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/03-Prion6-2-Transmission-and-strains.pdf
White-tailed deer are susceptible to the agent of sheep scrapie by intracerebral inoculation
snip...
It is unlikely that CWD will be eradicated from free-ranging cervids, and the disease is likely to continue to spread geographically [10]. However, the potential that white-tailed deer may be susceptible to sheep scrapie by a natural route presents an additional confounding factor to halting the spread of CWD. This leads to the additional speculations that
1) infected deer could serve as a reservoir to infect sheep with scrapie offering challenges to scrapie eradication efforts and
2) CWD spread need not remain geographically confined to current endemic areas, but could occur anywhere that sheep with scrapie and susceptible cervids cohabitate.
This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by intracerebral inoculation with a high attack rate and that the disease that results has similarities to CWD. These experiments will be repeated with a more natural route of inoculation to determine the likelihood of the potential transmission of sheep scrapie to white-tailed deer. If scrapie were to occur in white-tailed deer, results of this study indicate that it would be detected as a TSE, but may be difficult to differentiate from CWD without in-depth biochemical analysis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3199251/?tool=pubmed
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/10/white-tailed-deer-are-susceptible-to.html
2012
PO-039: A comparison of scrapie and chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer
Justin Greenlee, Jodi Smith, Eric Nicholson US Dept. Agriculture; Agricultural Research Service, National Animal Disease Center; Ames, IA USA
snip...
The results of this study suggest that there are many similarities in the manifestation of CWD and scrapie in WTD after IC inoculation including early and widespread presence of PrPSc in lymphoid tissues, clinical signs of depression and weight loss progressing to wasting, and an incubation time of 21-23 months. Moreover, western blots (WB) done on brain material from the obex region have a molecular profile similar to CWD and distinct from tissues of the cerebrum or the scrapie inoculum. However, results of microscopic and IHC examination indicate that there are differences between the lesions expected in CWD and those that occur in deer with scrapie: amyloid plaques were not noted in any sections of brain examined from these deer and the pattern of immunoreactivity by IHC was diffuse rather than plaque-like.
*** After a natural route of exposure, 100% of WTD were susceptible to scrapie.
Deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 months PI. Tissues from these deer were positive for PrPSc by IHC and WB. Similar to IC inoculated deer, samples from these deer exhibited two different molecular profiles: samples from obex resembled CWD whereas those from cerebrum were similar to the original scrapie inoculum. On further examination by WB using a panel of antibodies, the tissues from deer with scrapie exhibit properties differing from tissues either from sheep with scrapie or WTD with CWD. Samples from WTD with CWD or sheep with scrapie are strongly immunoreactive when probed with mAb P4, however, samples from WTD with scrapie are only weakly immunoreactive. In contrast, when probed with mAb’s 6H4 or SAF 84, samples from sheep with scrapie and WTD with CWD are weakly immunoreactive and samples from WTD with scrapie are strongly positive. This work demonstrates that WTD are highly susceptible to sheep scrapie, but on first passage, scrapie in WTD is differentiable from CWD.
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/03-Prion6-2-Transmission-and-strains.pdf
2011
*** After a natural route of exposure, 100% of white-tailed deer were susceptible to scrapie.
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/Reports/2011/report-cwal-2011.pdf
White-tailed Deer are Susceptible to Scrapie by Natural Route of Infection
Jodi D. Smith, Justin J. Greenlee, and Robert A. Kunkle; Virus and Prion Research Unit, National Animal Disease Center, USDA-ARS
Interspecies transmission studies afford the opportunity to better understand the potential host range and origins of prion diseases. Previous experiments demonstrated that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep-derived scrapie by intracranial inoculation. The purpose of this study was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer to scrapie after a natural route of exposure. Deer (n=5) were inoculated by concurrent oral (30 ml) and intranasal (1 ml) instillation of a 10% (wt/vol) brain homogenate derived from a sheep clinically affected with scrapie. Non-inoculated deer were maintained as negative controls. All deer were observed daily for clinical signs. Deer were euthanized and necropsied when neurologic disease was evident, and tissues were examined for abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot (WB). One animal was euthanized 15 months post-inoculation (MPI) due to an injury. At that time, examination of obex and lymphoid tissues by IHC was positive, but WB of obex and colliculus were negative. Remaining deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 MPI. Tissues from these deer were positive for scrapie by IHC and WB. Tissues with PrPSc immunoreactivity included brain, tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph nodes, hemal node, Peyer’s patches, and spleen. This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by potential natural routes of inoculation. In-depth analysis of tissues will be done to determine similarities between scrapie in deer after intracranial and oral/intranasal inoculation and chronic wasting disease resulting from similar routes of inoculation.
see full text ;
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/Reports/2010/report-cwal-2010.pdf
Monday, November 3, 2014
Persistence of ovine scrapie infectivity in a farm environment following cleaning and decontamination
http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2014/11/persistence-of-ovine-scrapie.html
PPo3-22:
Detection of Environmentally Associated PrPSc on a Farm with Endemic Scrapie
Ben C. Maddison,1 Claire A. Baker,1 Helen C. Rees,1 Linda A. Terry,2 Leigh Thorne,2 Susan J. Belworthy2 and Kevin C. Gough3 1ADAS-UK LTD; Department of Biology; University of Leicester; Leicester, UK; 2Veterinary Laboratories Agency; Surry, KT UK; 3Department of Veterinary Medicine and Science; University of Nottingham; Sutton Bonington, Loughborough UK
Key words: scrapie, evironmental persistence, sPMCA
Ovine scrapie shows considerable horizontal transmission, yet the routes of transmission and specifically the role of fomites in transmission remain poorly defined. Here we present biochemical data demonstrating that on a scrapie-affected sheep farm, scrapie prion contamination is widespread. It was anticipated at the outset that if prions contaminate the environment that they would be there at extremely low levels, as such the most sensitive method available for the detection of PrPSc, serial Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (sPMCA), was used in this study. We investigated the distribution of environmental scrapie prions by applying ovine sPMCA to samples taken from a range of surfaces that were accessible to animals and could be collected by use of a wetted foam swab. Prion was amplified by sPMCA from a number of these environmental swab samples including those taken from metal, plastic and wooden surfaces, both in the indoor and outdoor environment. At the time of sampling there had been no sheep contact with these areas for at least 20 days prior to sampling indicating that prions persist for at least this duration in the environment. These data implicate inanimate objects as environmental reservoirs of prion infectivity which are likely to contribute to disease transmission.
http://www.prion2010.org/bilder/prion_2010_program_latest_w_posters_4_.pdf?139&PHPSESSID=a30a38202cfec579000b77af81be3099
Veterinary Pathology Onlinevet.sagepub.com Published online before print February 27, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0300985814524798 Veterinary Pathology February 27, 2014 0300985814524798
Lesion Profiling and Subcellular Prion Localization of Cervid Chronic Wasting Disease in Domestic Cats
D. M. Seelig1⇑ A. V. Nalls1 M. Flasik2 V. Frank1 S. Eaton2 C. K. Mathiason1 E. A. Hoover1 1Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA 2Department of Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA D. M. Seelig, University of Minnesota, Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Room 339 VetMedCtrS, 6192A (Campus Delivery Code), 1352 Boyd Ave, St Paul, MN 55108, USA. Email address: dseelig@umn.edu
Abstract
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an efficiently transmitted, fatal, and progressive prion disease of cervids with an as yet to be fully clarified host range. While outbred domestic cats (Felis catus) have recently been shown to be susceptible to experimental CWD infection, the neuropathologic features of the infection are lacking. Such information is vital to provide diagnostic power in the event of natural interspecies transmission and insights into host and strain interactions in interspecies prion infection. Using light microscopy and immunohistochemistry, we detail the topographic pattern of neural spongiosis (the “lesion profile”) and the distribution of misfolded prion protein in the primary and secondary passage of feline CWD (FelCWD). We also evaluated cellular and subcellular associations between misfolded prion protein (PrPD) and central nervous system neurons and glial cell populations. From these studies, we (1) describe the novel neuropathologic profile of FelCWD, which is distinct from either cervid CWD or feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE), and (2) provide evidence of serial passage-associated interspecies prion adaptation. In addition, we demonstrate through confocal analysis the successful co-localization of PrPD with neurons, astrocytes, microglia, lysosomes, and synaptophysin, which, in part, implicates each of these in the neuropathology of FelCWD. In conclusion, this work illustrates the simultaneous role of both host and strain in the development of a unique FelCWD neuropathologic profile and that such a profile can be used to discriminate between FelCWD and FSE.
prion chronic wasting disease immunohistochemistry interspecies cat feline spongiform encephalopathy transmissible spongiform encephalopathy adaptation species barrier
http://vet.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/02/27/0300985814524798.abstract
Monday, August 8, 2011 Susceptibility of Domestic Cats to CWD Infection
Oral.29: Susceptibility of Domestic Cats to CWD Infection
Amy Nalls, Nicholas J. Haley, Jeanette Hayes-Klug, Kelly Anderson, Davis M. Seelig, Dan S. Bucy, Susan L. Kraft, Edward A. Hoover and Candace K. Mathiason†
Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO USA†Presenting author; Email: ckm@lamar.colostate.edu
Domestic and non-domestic cats have been shown to be susceptible to one prion disease, feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE), thought to be transmitted through consumption of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) contaminated meat. Because domestic and free ranging felids scavenge cervid carcasses, including those in CWD affected areas, we evaluated the susceptibility of domestic cats to CWD infection experimentally. Groups of n = 5 cats each were inoculated either intracerebrally (IC) or orally (PO) with CWD deer brain homogenate. Between 40–43 months following IC inoculation, two cats developed mild but progressive symptoms including weight loss, anorexia, polydipsia, patterned motor behaviors and ataxia—ultimately mandating euthanasia. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the brain of one of these animals (vs. two age-matched controls) performed just before euthanasia revealed increased ventricular system volume, more prominent sulci, and T2 hyperintensity deep in the white matter of the frontal hemisphere and in cortical grey distributed through the brain, likely representing inflammation or gliosis. PrPRES and widely distributed peri-neuronal vacuoles were demonstrated in the brains of both animals by immunodetection assays. No clinical signs of TSE have been detected in the remaining primary passage cats after 80 months pi. Feline-adapted CWD was sub-passaged into groups (n=4 or 5) of cats by IC, PO, and IP/SQ routes. Currently, at 22 months pi, all five IC inoculated cats are demonstrating abnormal behavior including increasing aggressiveness, pacing, and hyper responsiveness.
*** Two of these cats have developed rear limb ataxia. Although the limited data from this ongoing study must be considered preliminary, they raise the potential for cervid-to-feline transmission in nature.
http://www.prion2011.ca/files/PRION_2011_-_Posters_(May_5-11).pdf
http://felinespongiformencephalopathyfse.blogspot.com/2011/08/susceptibility-of-domestic-cats-to-cwd.html
AD.63:
Susceptibility of domestic cats to chronic wasting disease
Amy V.Nalls,1 Candace Mathiason,1 Davis Seelig,2 Susan Kraft,1 Kevin Carnes,1 Kelly Anderson,1 Jeanette Hayes-Klug1 and Edward A. Hoover1 1Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO USA; 2University of Minnesota; Saint Paul, MN USA
Domestic and nondomestic cats have been shown to be susceptible to feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE), almost certainly caused by consumption of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)-contaminated meat. Because domestic and free-ranging nondomestic felids scavenge cervid carcasses, including those in areas affected by chronic wasting disease (CWD), we evaluated the susceptibility of the domestic cat (Felis catus) to CWD infection experimentally. Cohorts of 5 cats each were inoculated either intracerebrally (IC) or orally (PO) with CWD-infected deer brain. At 40 and 42 mo post-inoculation, two IC-inoculated cats developed signs consistent with prion disease, including a stilted gait, weight loss, anorexia, polydipsia, patterned motor behaviors, head and tail tremors, and ataxia, and progressed to terminal disease within 5 mo. Brains from these two cats were pooled and inoculated into cohorts of cats by IC, PO, and intraperitoneal and subcutaneous (IP/SC) routes. Upon subpassage, feline-adapted CWD (FelCWD) was transmitted to all IC-inoculated cats with a decreased incubation period of 23 to 27 mo. FelCWD was detected in the brains of all the symptomatic cats by western blotting and immunohistochemistry and abnormalities were seen in magnetic resonance imaging, including multifocal T2 fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) signal hyper-intensities, ventricular size increases, prominent sulci, and white matter tract cavitation. Currently, 3 of 4 IP/SQ and 2 of 4 PO inoculared cats have developed abnormal behavior patterns consistent with the early stage of feline CWD.
*** These results demonstrate that CWD can be transmitted and adapted to the domestic cat, thus raising the issue of potential cervid-to- feline transmission in nature.
http://www.prion2013.ca/tiny_uploads/forms/Scientific-Program.pdf
www.landesbioscience.com
PO-081: Chronic wasting disease in the cat— Similarities to feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE)
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/04-Prion6-2-Pathogenesis-and-pathology.pdf
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2012/05/chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-prion2012.html
FELINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY FSE
http://felinespongiformencephalopathyfse.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html
http://felinespongiformencephalopathyfse.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Prion Remains Infectious after Passage through Digestive System of American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2012/10/prion-remains-infectious-after-passage.html
Chronic Wasting Disease Susceptibility of Four North American Rodents
Chad J. Johnson1*, Jay R. Schneider2, Christopher J. Johnson2, Natalie A. Mickelsen2, Julia A. Langenberg3, Philip N. Bochsler4, Delwyn P. Keane4, Daniel J. Barr4, and Dennis M. Heisey2 1University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Comparative Biosciences, 1656 Linden Drive, Madison WI 53706, USA 2US Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center, 6006 Schroeder Road, Madison WI 53711, USA 3Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 101 South Webster Street, Madison WI 53703, USA 4Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, 445 Easterday Lane, Madison WI 53706, USA *Corresponding author email: cjohnson@svm.vetmed.wisc.edu
We intracerebrally challenged four species of native North American rodents that inhabit locations undergoing cervid chronic wasting disease (CWD) epidemics. The species were: deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), white-footed mice (P. leucopus), meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus), and red-backed voles (Myodes gapperi). The inocula were prepared from the brains of hunter-harvested white-tailed deer from Wisconsin that tested positive for CWD. Meadow voles proved to be most susceptible, with a median incubation period of 272 days. Immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry confirmed the presence of PrPd in the brains of all challenged meadow voles. Subsequent passages in meadow voles lead to a significant reduction in incubation period. The disease progression in red-backed voles, which are very closely related to the European bank vole (M. glareolus) which have been demonstrated to be sensitive to a number of TSEs, was slower than in meadow voles with a median incubation period of 351 days. We sequenced the meadow vole and red-backed vole Prnp genes and found three amino acid (AA) differences outside of the signal and GPI anchor sequences. Of these differences (T56-, G90S, S170N; read-backed vole:meadow vole), S170N is particularly intriguing due its postulated involvement in "rigid loop" structure and CWD susceptibility. Deer mice did not exhibit disease signs until nearly 1.5 years post-inoculation, but appear to be exhibiting a high degree of disease penetrance. White-footed mice have an even longer incubation period but are also showing high penetrance. Second passage experiments show significant shortening of incubation periods. Meadow voles in particular appear to be interesting lab models for CWD. These rodents scavenge carrion, and are an important food source for many predator species. Furthermore, these rodents enter human and domestic livestock food chains by accidental inclusion in grain and forage. Further investigation of these species as potential hosts, bridge species, and reservoirs of CWD is required.
please see ;
http://www.cwd-info.org/pdf/3rd_CWD_Symposium_utah.pdf
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2009/08/third-international-cwd-symposium-july.html
Monday, April 04, 2016
*** Limited amplification of chronic wasting disease prions in the peripheral tissues of intracerebrally inoculated cattle
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2016/04/limited-amplification-of-chronic.html
I7
Early Trafficking and Dissemination of CWD Prions in Deer
Edward A. Hoover1*, Clare E. Hoover1, Davin M. Henderson1, Nathaniel D. Denkers1, Kristin A. Davenport1, Shannon Bartelt-Hunt2, Alan M. Elder1, Anthony E. Kincaid3, 4, Jason C. Bartz3, Mark D. Zabel1, Candace K. Mathiason1 1Prion Research Center, Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA 2Department of Civil Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Prion2015 Program Guide 10 invited speakers
PRION 2015
Efficient horizontal infection is a hallmark of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in freeranging cervids. The mechanisms and pathways that enable this remarkable process, however, remain incompletely understood--in particular the facile transmucosal entry, exit, and environmental persistence of CWD prions. We have focused on trans-mucosal CWD infection in white-tailed deer, specifically on early prion tissue tropism and later stage prion shedding and association with environmental constituents using modifications of real-time quaking-induced conversion combined with amplified immunohistochemistry. We have documented very early trans-mucosal prion passage (within hours), followed by uptake and amplification in upper digestive tract lymphoid t i s s u e s ( 4 w e e k s ) , and dissemination to more distant lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissue sites (8-12 weeks). We have used quantitative approaches to realtime conversion to estimate the relatively low (i.e. vs. tissues) prion concentrations in body fluids and excreta; i.e. >100 (cervidized mouse) LD50 are shed daily in the urine of one CWD infected deer. Using similar methods, we have also demonstrated and quantified the impressive affinity of CWD prions for both silty clay loam (a major environmental soil constituent) and metal surfaces. Mucosal uptake, excretion, and environmental interactions are central to this most transmissible of prion diseases.
https://prion2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/programguide1.pdf
PMCA Detection of CWD Infection in Cervid and Non-Cervid Species
Hoover, Edward Arthur Colorado State University-Fort Collins, Fort Collins, CO, United States
ABSTRACT Chronic wasting disease (CWD) of deer and elk is an emerging highly transmissible prion disease now recognized in 18 States, 2 Canadian provinces, and Korea.
***We have shown that Infected deer harbor and shed high levels of infectious prions in saliva, blood, urine, and feces, and in the tissues generating those body fluids and excreta, thereby leading to facile transmission by direct contact and environmental contamination.
***We have also shown that CWD can infect some non-cervid species, thus the potential risk CWD represents to domestic animal species and to humans remains unknown.
Whether prions borne in blood, saliva, nasal fluids, milk, or excreta are generated or modified in the proximate peripheral tissue sites, may differ in subtle ways from those generated in brain, or may be adapted for mucosal infection remain open questions.
The increasing parallels in the pathogenesis between prion diseases and human neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, add relevance to CWD as a transmissible protein misfolding disease.
The overall goal of this work is to elucidate the process of CWD prion transmission from mucosal secretory and excretory tissue sites by addressing these questions:
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Public Health Relevance Chronic wasting disease (CWD) of deer and elk is an emergent highly transmissible prion disease now recognized throughout the USA as well as in Canada and Korea. We have shown that infected deer harbor and shed high levels of infectious prions in saliva, blood, urine, and feces thereby leading to transmission by direct contact and environmental contamination. In that our studies have also shown that CWD can infect some non-cervid species, the potential risk CWD may represents to domestic animal species and humans remains unknown. The increasing parallels in the development of major human neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and prion diseases add relevance to CWD as a model of a transmissible protein misfolding disease. Understanding how infectious misfolded proteins (prions) are generated and transmitted will aid in interrupting, treating, and managing the risks associated with these agents and the diseases they cause.
http://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-NS061902-05
Prion Amplification and Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling Refine Detection of Prion Infection
Infected animals shed prions into the environment through saliva, feces, urine and even antler velvet15,20,21,22,23,24. Studies have successfully transmitted PrPCWD through a single dose of urine or feces from animals displaying signs of CWD, indicating that at the time of clinical disease sufficient prions are shed to result in an infectious dose24,25. However, at what stage(s) of disease animals shed prions into the environment remains unclear. If shedding occurs early in disease, a sub-clinical animal may not only shed prions into the environment, increasing the infectious reservoir, but may also transmit CWD horizontally to their associates.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep08358#ref-link-section-27
Keywords: RT-QuIC, chronic wasting disease, diagnosis, feces, prion, surveillance, urine
Authors: Theodore R. John, Hermann M. Schätzl and Sabine Gilch
Theodore R. John Department of Veterinary Sciences; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA
Hermann M. Schätzl Department of Veterinary Sciences; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA; Department of Molecular Biology; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA; Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; Department of Comparative Biology and Experimental Medicine; University of Calgary; Calgary, AB Canada
Sabine Gilch Corresponding author: sgilch@ucalgary.ca Department of Veterinary Sciences; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA; Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; Department of Ecosystem and Public Health; University of Calgary; Calgary, AB Canada
Abstract:
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease of captive and free-ranging deer (Odocoileus spp), elk (Cervus elaphus nelsonii) and moose (Alces alces shirasi). Unlike in most other prion diseases, in CWD prions are shed in urine and feces, which most likely contributes to the horizontal transmission within and between cervid species. To date, CWD ante-mortem diagnosis is only possible by immunohistochemical detection of protease resistant prion protein (PrPSc) in tonsil or recto-anal mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (RAMALT) biopsies, which requires anesthesia of animals. We report on detection of CWD prions in urine collected from pre-symptomatic deer and in fecal extracts by using real time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC). This assay can be useful for non-invasive pre-symptomatic diagnosis and surveillance of CWD.
Received: February 7, 2013; Accepted: March 24, 2013; Published Online: April 10, 2013
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Introduction
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is to date the most contagious prion disease and affects captive and free-ranging elk, deer and moose in North America.1,2 The disease is caused by the accumulation of an abnormally folded isoform of the cellular prion protein PrPC, denominated PrPSc.3,4 CWD is the cervid equivalent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), scrapie in sheep and goat5 or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans.6 Although transmission studies of CWD prions to humanized transgenic mice or non-human primates suggest a strong species barrier,7-9 recent in vitro studies have demonstrated that human PrP can be converted by CWD prions into PrPSc upon adaptation.10 Therefore, a potential for zoonotic transmission, as exemplified by BSE,11 cannot be completely excluded.
A huge body of evidence suggests that CWD can be efficiently transmitted horizontally within and between cervid species,12 which may be the reason for geographical spread and increase in case numbers. Horizontal transmission is explained by the rather unusual peripheral distribution of prions in CWD affected animals and the high susceptibility to the disease by oral infection.13,14 Unlike in most other prion diseases, CWD prions can be found in a wide variety of tissues, such as skeletal and cardiac muscle15,16 or kidney,17 in addition to the lymphoreticular system and blood.18 Furthermore, they are shed in significant amounts in saliva,18,19 urine19 or feces,20 which enables oral infection of animals by foraging on contaminated pastures.
In addition, it has been demonstrated that prions can persist in soil21 and that water in endemic areas can contain CWDassociated PrPSc.22
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We demonstrate that CWD prions are detectable in urine of orally infected deer prior to the onset of clinical symptoms. Furthermore, we show that fecal extracts can be used as a seed in RT-QuIC assays. Thereby, we were able to detect CWD prions in fecal extracts collected at later stages of the disease. This study provides the first evidence that RT-QuIC can be successfully used for the preclinical diagnosis of CWD in specimens that are available by non-invasive methods.
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In summary, we demonstrate that CWD prions can be detected by RT-QuIC in urine of orally infected white-tailed deer and mule deer at a pre-symptomatic stage of the disease.
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http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/article/24430/2013PRION0009R.pdf
2008
Excretion of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Infectivity in Urine
Luisa Gregori, Gabor G. Kovacs, Irina Alexeeva, Herbert Budka, and Robert G. Rohwer
To the extent that results from the hamster model can be generalized to other TSE infections (and it has so far proven highly predictive), then even the very low concentrations of infectivity measured here could result in substantial environmental contamination. Several liters of urine and several thousand doses of TSE infectivity may be excreted daily over the course of the illness; even higher titers might be excreted by an animal with nephritis. The high stability of TSE infectivity would account for its persistence in pasture years after infected animals are removed (31). Recent studies have shown that infectivity that is adsorbed and immobilized by soil minerals (32) can still infect hamsters by oral exposure 29 months later (33). Our study also warns of a possible risk from TSE contamination to fertility hormones and other medicinal products extracted from human urine.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/9/08-0259_article
Sunday, November 10, 2013
LARGE CJD TSE PRION POTENTIAL CASE STUDY AMONG HUMANS WHO TAKE DEER ANTLER VELVET WILL BE ONGOING FOR YEARS IF NOT DECADES, but who's cares $
http://creutzfeldt-jakob-disease.blogspot.com/2013/11/large-cjd-tse-prion-potential-case.html
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health; Meeting [Docket No. APHIS-2016-0007] Singeltary Submission
http://animalhealthreportpriontse.blogspot.com/2016/02/secretarys-advisory-committee-on-animal.html
Friday, March 18, 2016 CFSAN
Constituent Update: FDA Announces Final Rule on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy BSE MAD COW TSE PRION Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition - Constituent Update
http://bseusa.blogspot.com/2016/03/cfsan-constituent-update-fda-announces.html
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
*** Docket No. FDA-2016-N-0321 Risk Assessment of Foodborne Illness Associated with Pathogens from Produce Grown in Fields Amended with Untreated Biological Soil Amendments of Animal Origin; Request for Comments, Scientific Data, and Information Singeltary Submission ***
http://animalhealthreportpriontse.blogspot.com/2016/03/docket-no-fda-2016-n-0321-risk.html
Monday, March 28, 2016
National Scrapie Eradication Program February 2016 Monthly Report
http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2016/03/national-scrapie-eradication-program.html
*** Docket No. APHIS-2007-0127 Scrapie in Sheep and Goats Terry Singeltary Sr. Submission ***
Monday, November 16, 2015
*** Docket No. APHIS-2007-0127 Scrapie in Sheep and Goats Terry Singeltary Sr. Submission ***
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2007-0127-0032
http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2015/11/docket-no-aphis-2007-0127-scrapie-in.html
Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
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