Experimental transfusion of variant CJD-infected blood reveals previously uncharacterised prion disorder in mice and macaque.

ABSTRACT: Exposure of human populations to bovine spongiform encephalopathy through contaminated food has resulted in <250 cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). However, more than 99% of vCJD infections could have remained silent suggesting a long-term risk of secondary transmission particularly through blood. Here, we present experimental evidence that transfusion in mice and non-human primates of blood products from symptomatic and non-symptomatic infected donors induces not only vCJD, but also a different class of neurological impairments. These impairments can all be retransmitted to mice with a pathognomonic accumulation of abnormal prion protein, thus expanding the spectrum of known prion diseases. Our findings suggest that the intravenous route promotes propagation of masked prio

SUBMITTER: Comoy EE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5668246 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature