Increased susceptibility of human-PrP transgenic mice to bovine spongiform encephalopathy infection following passage in sheep.

ABSTRACT: The risk of the transmission of ruminant transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) to humans was thought to be low due to the lack of association between sheep scrapie and the incidence of human TSE. However, a single TSE agent strain has been shown to cause both bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and human vCJD, indicating that some ruminant TSEs are transmissible to humans. While the transmission of cattle BSE to humans in transgenic mouse models has been inefficient, indicating the presence of a significant transmission barrier between cattle and humans, BSE has been transmitted to a number of other species. Here, we aimed to further investigate the human transmission barrier following the passage of BSE in a sheep. Following inoculation with cattle BSE, gene-targeted transgenic

SUBMITTER: Plinston C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3020518 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature