EUROVOITE: Improved bioassays for TSE agents based on the bank vole, a wild rodent species higly susceptible to scrapie

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 02.0294

Key words (English)

Life Sciences; Scientific Research

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: QLRI-CT-2002-81333

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.1.2 Control of infectious diseases

Short description (English)

See abstract

Further information (English)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise:
Universität Zürich
Anatomisches Institut
Abteilung Neuroanatomie und Verhalten

Abstract (English)

The project aims to develop improved animal models and bioassays for TSE agents useful for infectivity and strain typing studies. They will be based on the bank vole, a wild rodent with unprecedented susceptibility to the scrapie agent. Transmission studies of animal and human TSEs will be carried out in voles, wild type and ovine PrP Tg mice. A transfected cell line and a Tg mouse expressing the vole PrP gene will be generated for infectivity studies. Besides a high susceptibility of voles to scrapie, preliminary results showed a simultaneous resistance to BSE. Mechanisms accounting for the differential transmissibility of scrapie and BSE will be studied by in vitro PrP conversion and in Tg mice, by means of mutated PrP vole genes. The implications of the high susceptibility of voles for scrapie epidemiology will be investigated in semi-naturalistic studies by following up the possible spread of scrapie in closed populations of voles.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 02.0294