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Prion diseases (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies) are fatal neurodegenerative disorders in humans and animals. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is a disorder originating from exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy–like prions. Although the number of clinical cases of vCJD has been fairly small, the number of infected individuals remains unclear. The lack of a procedure for cultivating prions in the laboratory has been the major limitation to study the nature of this infectious agent and the mechanism by which the normal prion protein (PrPc) is converted into the abnormal isoform (PrPSc; Lancet 2011; 377: 487). Now, two research groups report findings on testing easily obtainable tissue samples for CJD infection.
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