Development and control of prpsc-based tests in humans and animals using cerebrospinal and brain tissue

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 99.0019

Key words (English)

Prion; BSE

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: BMH4-CT98-7024

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 4. Frame Research Programme - 4.2 Agriculture and agroindustry

Short description (English)

See abstract

Partners and International Organizations (English)

Coordinator: Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen (D)

Abstract (English)

A national BSE surveillance program was started in 1999. 60'350 animals from fallen stock, from emergency slaughter, and from routinely slaughtered cattle were tested by Western blot. 60 of them reacted positive and all of them were retested by histopathology and immunohistochemistry methods in our institute. The diagnosis of all of this cases could be confirmed. Independent of this investigations, the BSE status of another 182 cows were clarified, 42 from which were positive. Part of the brains of all positive animals were compiled and frozen at -80 °C. Our collection includes 210 BSE positive animals at present. In addition, a ELISA-test for BSE was developed which, contrary to other existing tests, does not need proteinase K digestion. Detection of PrPSc was accomplished by treatment with heat, which unmasked antigenic sides in PrPSc (Meyer et al., J. Virol., 1999, 73, 9386-9392). This assay was tested with 180 blinded samples. The sensitivity of the ELISA was 69% and its specificity 90%. To improve sensitivity and specificity the heat treatment method was refined. It was observed, that, when treated by an exactly defined heat, hidden antgenic sides were unmasked not only in PrPSc but also in PrPC in a highly reproducible fashion. The use of this method for early detection of BSE and for strain typing is still in development

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: 99.0019