The bank vole (Myodes glareolus) as a sensitive bioassay for sheep scrapie

• DOI: 10.1099/vir.0.2008/005520-0
• Publication Date: 2008-11-13T19:43:46Z
• Authors: M. A. Di Bari; F. Chianini; G. Vaccari; E. Esposito; M. Conte; S. L. Eaton; S. Hamilton; J. Finlayson; P. J. Steele; M. P. Dagleish; H. W. Reid; M. Bruce; M. Jeffrey; U. Agrimi; R. Nonno
• Keywords: Infectivity; Bank vole; Tonsil; Strain (injury); Incubation period

Despite intensive studies on sheep scrapie, a number of questions remain unanswered, such as the natural mode transmission and amount infectivity which accumulates in edible tissues at different stages scrapie infection. Studies using mouse model proved to be useful for recognizing strain diversity, but low sensitivity mice some isolates hampered further investigations. To investigate bank voles (Myodes glareolus) we performed end-point titrations from two unrelated sources. Similar titres [105.5 ID50 U g−1 105.8 g−1, both intracerebrally (i.c.)] were obtained, showing that can detect up 3–4 orders magnitude lower when compared with laboratory mice. We investigated relationships between PrPSc molecular characteristics, prion titre brain tonsil same scrapie-affected sheep. found protease-resistant fragments (PrPres) had features, induced identical disease phenotypes voles. The estimated by incubation time assay was 104.8 i.c. i.e. fivefold less than brain. This well relative PrPres content, 8.8-fold Our results suggest harboured glycoprofiles relation cellular/tissue types it replicated, PrPSc-based estimate could achieved combining sensitive detection methods bioassay