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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Animal Disease Center » Virus and Prion Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #395162
Research Project: Elucidating the Pathobiology and Transmission of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies

Location: Virus and Prion Research

Title: ATYPRION project: assessing the zoonotic potential of interspecies transmission of CWD isolates to livestock (preliminary results)

Author
item VIDAL, ENRIC - Institute De Recerca I Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (IRTA)
item ESPINOSA, JUAN CARLOS - Centro De Investigación En Sanidad Animal (CISA-INIA)
item GILER, SAMANTHA - Institute De Recerca I Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (IRTA)
item ORDONEZ, MONTSERRAT - Institute De Recerca I Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (IRTA)
item CANTERO, GUILLERMO - Institute De Recerca I Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (IRTA)
item BERINGUE, VINCENT - Institut National De La Recherche Agronomique (INRA)
item Greenlee, Justin
item TORRES, JUAN MARIA - Centro De Investigación En Sanidad Animal (CISA-INIA)

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/22/2022
Publication Date: 9/13/2022
Citation: Vidal, E., Espinosa, J., Giler, S., Ordonez, M., Cantero, G., Beringue, V., Greenlee, J.J., Torres, J. 2022. ATYPRION project: assessing the zoonotic potential of interspecies transmission of CWD isolates to livestock (preliminary results). Prion 2022 Conference abstracts: pushing the boundaries. 16(1):240. https://doi.org/10.1080/19336896.2022.2091286.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19336896.2022.2091286

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Since variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was linked to the consumption of bovine spongiform encephalopathy prions, the study of the pathobiological features of animal prions, particularly their zoonotic potential, is of great concern to the scientific community and public health authorities. Furthermore, interspecies transmission of prions has been demonstrated as a putative evolutionary mechanism for prions, that can lead to the emergence of new features including the ability to infect humans. For instance, small ruminants’ atypical scrapie prions, when propagated in a bovine or porcine host, can shift to a classical BSE phenotype thus posing a potential risk in case of human exposure. So far, no hard evidence of zoonotic transmission of cervids’ chronic wasting disease (CWD) to humans has been published, however experimental transmission to bovine, ovine and caprine hosts has been achieved. Our goal is to investigate if, once passaged through these domestic species, CWD prions might become infectious to humans. Different CWD isolates experimentally adapted to cattle, sheep and goat (Hamir et al, 2005, 2006, 2007, Greenlee et al 2012) have been intracerebrally inoculated to transgenic mouse models expressing the human cellular prion protein either homozygous for methionine or valine at codon 129 (Tg340-Met129 and Tg362-Val129). Additionally, inocula obtained from experimental transmission of elk CWD to ovinized (Tg501) and bovinized (BoTg110) transgenic mice, as well as white-tailed deer CWD to BoTg110 mice, are currently being bioassayed in both human PrPC transgenic models. No evidence of transmission has been found on first passage for bovine adapted elk and mule deer CWD to none of the humanized models. The remaining bioassays are ongoing without showing clinical signs yet, as well as second passages for the negative 1st passages.